Media mania fires our Amy

Andrew Mathieson
HER star is still rising but Amy Parks is out to prove she’s more than just a pretty face.
Most notably, the 24yearold is now making her mark in filling Channel 9’s midnight slot on Quizmania.
The latest phonein game craze, however, is a far cry from some ambiguous beginnings.
The wideeyed Bellarine Peninsula teenager initially dreamt of being a “hard, straightnose journo”.
But then the stage bug bit hard in a junior Geelong theatre group and with Matthew Flinders’ school jazz band.
Amy shot to prominence as lead singer for the school’s criticallyacclaimed Sweethearts of Swing band, which toured overseas.
“That was like fate in a way and they were a very big part of me growing up for five years,” she recalls.
Amy moved to the Bellarine Peninsula from Horsham at 13, and lived a ponyfilled existence at St Leonards first, then Drysdale and Portarlington.
Amy’s media career is now a world away from her days in Geelong.
“I don’t think anyone even realises I’m still around because we’re on in the middle of the night,” Amy laughs.
“Quizmania is not the pinnacle but it’s the biggest thing so far.
“I’ve been on telly for a little while but working for a commercial network is always going to make some noise.”
Amy first toiled away on RMITTV during her journalism degree. The first big break came on Channel 31.
She produced and presented Newsline as a part of her studies and succeeded Rove McManus’s timeslot with Raucous, a live music show over the next three seasons.
“You learn whether or not you’re passionate about it when there’s no pay cheque,” Amy adds.
Things changed quick enough and Amy’s talents were noticed.
She finally got paid to compere live harness racing on the community provider after a spat between Racing Victoria and Sky.
In only her second uni year, Amy was invited to a screentest to host Fox Footy’s Young Guns, a new series about the rise of rookie AFL hopefuls prior to the national draft.
“I look back at the tapes and I was very Channel 31 at the time – very unpolished, very relaxed, too,” she grins.
Amy fondly remembers rubbing shoulders with 2007 AFL captains Nick Riewoldt, from St Kilda, and Chris Judd, of West Coast.
Amy, an Essendon supporter, said it was not until she moved to Geelong that she “caught football fever”.
“I think it’s because Geelong has such a strong football culture, having its own club and because it’s a bit removed from Melbourne,” she says.
“The people are really tied to the club.”
In between television appearances, Amy hounded former Geelong journalist Simon Matthews – Essendon’s media communication officer – and played on his loyalties.
“I told him I don’t get an internship until next year so I’ll just come in and hang around the club for my uni holidays,” she says.
What started out as six weeks turned into an entire season, interviewing the coaches and writing copy for the club’s website.
But Amy’s latest project was from left field.
She presented a children’s DVD – Talking Time – to help parents instil good speech practices around the home.
“I studied journalism with the idea I would become a hard straightnose journo and then when I started working at Channel 31 this entertainment sort of thing started to wake within me,” Amy admits.
Therein lies the evolution to Quizmania.
Amy pauses for a moment before considering the direction her career has taken.
“One day I’ll make those journalism professors proud,” she mocks.
“I don’t know if they’ll turn on the telly and go ‘Oh yeah, there’s Parksy, good on her.
“God bless, she’s one of our proudest achievements’.”