LIFE has been on an exciting roll for Calista Liew since the lively Sabahan moved to Selangor three years ago.
She has what many would consider a dream job. Chatting up celebrities and international artistes is all in a day’s work for the radio announcer at Hitz.
Calista’s bubbly personality and friendly voice are assets that endear her to the audience.
Speaking to theSun, she explained how this career pathway was actually not something she had in mind.
“I started in the events line and somehow was pushed to start emceeing events. And it just so happened that Hitz Sabah was looking for a new announcer and they told me to send in a few voice demos. And things just happened from there.”
Currently hosting The Hitz Days, Calista shares her love for all things pop with listeners from 10am to 3pm every weekday.
Apart from her day job at Hitz, Calista has also recently further expanded her reach with her latest podcast show The C Word, where she speaks about current topics that affect the youth of today.
What are the highlights for you at Hitz?
One of the favourite things that I have done so far was with Hitz Sabah. It was a campaign called 5 schools in 5 days, where we spent a whole week going to secondary schools. As someone who enjoys connecting with listeners, that stood out for me because I spent a whole week talking to different people.
Another one would be the opportunity to speak with a lot of celebrities and artistes. With the pandemic, the silver lining for us was that we now have a lot more access to celebrities, even the ones we were not able to interview previously because they never came to Malaysia. But now, we have direct access as everything is on Zoom. That has definitely been a highlight for me!
Do you like hearing your own voice?
When I hear it in the car, it is fine but we have this thing called air check – where our management would sit with us in a room and play our talk sets. So, they be like ‘let’s listen to this one that you did at noon earlier on.’ And you are sitting in the room with two people and they are playing your voice over and over again. I hate it because it is so awkward. Everything sounds so bad.
And even when I am interviewing celebrities, I do get nervous at times. But one thing I have learned very early on is that celebrities never want you to fangirl over them. So, even if I am talking to my favourite celebrity, on the outside I am cool. I think a lot of people do not realise that we are not jaded, we still do get excited, it is just that we have to put professionalism above everything else.
What was the inspiration behind The C Word?
We (Hitz) were actually offered the platform with the Syok app. So, we were asked if we were interested to do the podcast and they will be able to host it for us. As someone keen on content, I thought it would be interesting to speak with all these successful content creators. To see how they actually got to where they are.
With the younger generation now, many of them have aspirations to become YouTubers and influencers.
Hence, I thought it would be beneficial to them since this is something you cannot learn in school. So, that was what inspired me to start the show.
What is the difference between the podcast and your work at Hitz?
I have more control and I get to go more in-depth with the content. At Hitz, our sessions are very short. But for The C Word, I can get the whole story out. Whereas if I do an interview on Hitz that is maybe around 15 minutes, I would have to cut it down to three minutes. Because that is how radio culture is. On the podcast, however, listeners are already used to the length.
How do you pick the topics and interview subjects?
It depends on the content they are creating. For instance, I chose to speak with Miss Alvy because I saw how vocal she was on cancel culture online.
And I thought that was a great topic. Because things can get pretty ugly on social media. And not everyone wants to talk about it because if you do, you become a target. So, I thought the conversation was relevant.
As to my dream guests, I would love to speak to Taylor Swift! She is the number one person on my list. Aside from her, I would love to talk to Tara Milk Tea – a master at blending art, travel, fashion and even sponsored posts. Her creativity and quality never cease to amaze me.
