AS THE radio industry becomes increasingly commercial, local content is becoming harder and harder to come by.

But for one iconic radio station in the Tweed, local content remains its bread and butter.

Radio 97, which first aired in Murwillumbah in 1936 before moving to Tweed Heads in 1984, has been a reliable source of local news, talkback and music for nearly 80 years.

Broadcasting over several channels from Mullumbimby to the Gold Coast, two of the station's most recognisable voices are that of presenters Scott Mayman and Leon Delaney.

Mr Mayman, who wakes up at the crack of dawn to gather as much news as possible before his breakfast show at 6am, is for many listeners the very first voice they hear in the morning.

Using the slogan, "Get up to the minute, the minute you're up”, Mr Mayman presents a mixture of news and music for his early morning audience.

Now in his third stint at Radio 97, Mr Mayman has worked in broadcasting for 34 years and still loves to "kickstart everyone's day”.

"With the breakfast show I try to go back to the basics, the heritage of radio,” he said.

"There is still room for those more mainstream and sometimes darker stories but there are other opportunities to create a fun, kickstart to somebody's day, which is what I try to do.

"Whether it's a new song or a news item, very few people have the ability to create an imagination for the listener. Radio is the theatre of the mind if done correctly and I love it.”

Starting off his career at a small community station in Brisbane, Mr Mayman did a cadetship at what is now 4KQ and has worked in various roles in different newsrooms ever since.

Aside from doing the breakfast show, Mr Mayman also records news stories each morning which are played nationally across the 2SM network.

He also works as a correspondent for CBS in New York where he often reports the latest quirky stories coming out of Australia.

But Mr Mayman says the Australian radio industry is in a "bad place", with local content quickly becoming scarce as an increasing amount of radio networks play the same show over a number of stations nationwide.

"There's a real loss of local content, it's very sad," he said.

"Instead of putting out a quality product, they'll just network a music show from somewhere else and you lose that one on one connection.

"By losing that one on one connection, you actually lose revenue because listeners don't want to hear a networked program, they want to hear something local.

"One of my colleagues at an opposing station, all their news decisions are made by someone in Canberra, they don't know what's going on locally or who the people are, so when they're so far removed, what is the next step?"

Mr Mayman said he felt "lucky" to work for a network which still felt strongly about local news.

Working alongside Mr Mayman is the nationally recognised voice of Leon Delaney, the first stand-in presenter for famous talk-show host John Laws.

When he's not filling in for John Laws as a presenter, Mr Delaney said he's either doing research for the program or editing the show's best of segment.

The way he came to get his role is an interesting one.

Mr Delaney was presenting the morning show for 2SM from 2003-2010 and was essentially a rival to John Laws, who was presenting in the same timeslot on the 2UE network.

Laws later retired but soon after was offered the same role at 2SM - effectively replacing Mr Delaney.

What originally seemed to be a step backwards has been a giant leap forward.

After working as the fill-in for John Laws, Mr Delaney has become one of Australian radio's most recognised voices.

"I really enjoy it, there's no bigger role in Australian radio than John Laws, that is the pinnacle,” he said.

Radio has changed a lot for Mr Delaney since he first started working with his local station in Kingaroy at the age of 18.

"hen I started, there was a lot of tapes, we had tape cartridges and reel tapes, we played vinyl records for the music and that was the way it had been done for quite some time,” he said.

"ut during my time in this business, we've gone from that, to the introduction of computers, which were originally just used for scheduling but are now just used for everything.”

Mr Delaney said the highlights of working in such a high-profile role was "the ability to interact with listeners and callers”.

"I get to do interviews with high profile music stars, sporting stars, actors, filmmakers and of course, politicians, most of us don't have the chance to have a yarn with the sitting prime minister, and doing that you get to see them in the studio both before and after the microphone is switched on,” he said.

He said one of his greatest learning experiences was when he was caught off-guard by a politician he could not name.

"On one occasion he had said a certain thing and a few months later he said something completely different,” he said.

"I said, but three months ago you said such and such, and he said, 'no I didn't'.

"I was left with nowhere to go because I didn't have a recording with me to prove I was telling the truth, but there was a lesson there, you need to have the evidence there to back it up.

"The other lesson there is politicians change their opinions to suit the weather.”

As for the future of radio, Mr Delaney believes there "remains a very strong role for radio in the foreseeable future.”

"Radio has the capacity to deliver information and entertainment live to air as it happens, that's something a lot of other media simply can't do,” he said.

"It can be, but not always, strong at a local level that other media can't be, and for the moment it's still very big in people's cars.

"That is changing with streaming services, but I have a car, I have a USB stick full of 3000 songs, but I still listen to the radio because I can get the latest traffic updates, or I can hear the latest news, what the weather is going to be like later in the afternoon, or just hear my favourite personalities.”

Mr Delaney said while there was a loss in local radio content due to a lack of independent broadcasters, that was just the way things are.

"When I began a lot of regional stations were independent and locally owned, all of that is virtually gone, there are still one or two independent stations but most are parts of bigger networks now,” he said.

"But that's the reality of the world we live in now, everything is corporate.”