Clive Robertson (journalist)

Clive Robertson (born 28 December 1945) is an Australian radio and television personality in Sydney who has been heard on both the AM and FM bands for over forty years.

Early life

Robertson was born in Katoomba, New South Wales in 1945. He left school at the age of 16 to begin work on a farm (including his beloved "Massey-Harris Tractor"), going on to work for his father (a lawyer), later doing court work, and then moving on to become an electrical apprentice as well as running wires for the Postmaster-General's Department. He later worked on the railways cleaning steam locomotives, and also driving them from time to time, which would fuel a lifelong fascination with them.

On-air personality

Robertson is known for his wry wit and humorous dealings with talk-back callers, and his outspoken manner. He claims that Perth radio station 6IX fired him because he would not use the station's slogan, "have a happy day".^[1]

Career in broadcasting

In 1967 with the advent of Talk radio, Robertson began his broadcasting career working at a number of stations in the South-West of Western Australia. In 1972 he joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Sydney, beginning on the Radio station 2BL. He moved to Canberra a few months later and worked on 2CY and 2CN. A well known part of his breakfast show on 2BL^[2] was his daily tête-à-tête with either Caroline Jones or Margaret Throsby. He also presented the 7 pm television news for the ABC.

In 1980, he worked at 2DAY-FM, but returned to the ABC some months later.

From 1982–1988 he was also host of the Beauty and the Beast television talk show on Network Ten. Leaving ABC radio, he then moved to the Seven Network where he started off hosting the news program 11AM, and in 1985 became the host of Newsworld.^[3] Robertson took a unique approach to "Newsworld", and his later news show on channel 9, Robbo's World Tonight:

I thought I'll muck around and then they'll take me off it, you see. And it didn't work that way ... I'd have to say the order of things especially at Channel 9, the order of news items. And if I said, "Look, this is really important", I'd look at the camera and say, "This is a really important story" and set it up, and if it was an important story, then the audience think, "Oh this guy's a good filter." If you said, "Look, this is a silly item, I don't know why we're running it" and you run it and it is a silly item, you've got them. And it's not a con. What that program did is different from most news programs is gave things what they really were worth ... and did that go down well with the journalists? Have a guess Peter. "He's ruining our station" and all that rubbish. I mean, we get a new item in at, say, 10.30 at night and I'd say, "By the way, you'll see this at 6 o'clock tomorrow night" and they'll say it's the latest, "you know better". "You can't say things like that." Well, you know, come on, so journalists are a bit thick as you know...

— ABC "Talking Heads" Interview^[4]

Over the years Clive Robertson has broadcast on 6VA, 6TZ-CI, 6IX-WB-MD-BY, STW9 TV, 702 ABC Sydney (then called 2BL),^[5] ABC Canberra, Channel 10, 2DAY-FM, 2UE, 2GB,^[3] ABC Classic FM,^[6] 2SM and others, developing a loyal fanbase.

In 2006 he returned to national TV screens on the ABC Television show Agony Aunts.^[6]

Robertson was heard filling in for Stan Zemanek on 2UE from 8 pm to midnight just prior to Christmas in 2006. After the new year, he was moved to the midnight to dawn overnight timeslot. Robertson left 2UE in March 2008, not able to cope with the hours,^[7] but returned to 3 pm to 6 pm on weekend afternoons, and later the 2UE Nights programme (8pm to 12am).

Personal life

Robertson has been married twice. His second marriage was to actress Penny Cook. Both relationships ended in divorce.^[8]

References

External links