Radio: Retirement of John Laws
John Laws, 89, to retire from radio in November: ‘It’s time for a rest’
Broadcaster John Laws has announced that he will pull the plug on his extraordinary media career next month, reports The Australian’s James Madden.
It’s not the first time that the man known as ‘Golden Tonsils’ has stepped away from the microphone, but this time around, he says it’s for keeps. At 89 years of age, another comeback is a long shot.
On his morning show on Sydney’s 2SM on Tuesday, Laws responded to a listener’s praise of his program, saying: “You’re not going to be hearing it for long.”
“It’s time for a rest, is what I think,” Laws continued. “I’ve done it for a very, very, very, very long time, and 70 years – is that long enough? That’s long enough, and I think that I’ll just call it a day and call it a day pretty soon, probably beginning of November.
“First week of November, it’ll be 71 years since I started on radio. So I think, you know, I don’t want to be greedy. I’ve had 71 fantastic years, fantastic years. I had a really, really good time and loved, you know, most of it.”
John Laws, the ‘Golden Tonsils’ of radio, calls it quits – again
John Laws is one of Australia’s most recognisable voices in talkback radio, reports Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan.
Laws celebrated 71 years in the profession this year, having started his career at Bendigo’s 3BO in 1953.
He became widely known during his several stints at Sydney station 2UE, and for his rivalry with Alan Jones.
After stepping away from the industry for four years, Laws returned to radio in 2011 with The John Laws Morning Show on 2SM, where he has been broadcasting daily ever since.
In 1999, Laws and Jones were the subject of the infamous “cash for comment” affair in which Laws was accused of editorialising paid advertisements for brands including Qantas, Foxtel and others without disclosing them. He was found to have breached the advertising code in 2004 in a second scandal.
John Laws’ savvy $12m move prior to shock retirement
Veteran radio presenter John Laws made some key property moves just ahead of his surprise announcement that he was retiring from a long career in broadcasting, reports News Corp’s Aidan Devine.
The 89-year-old Laws broke the news on his 2SM radio show on Tuesday, after reading out an email from a listener who had written in to tell the host he enjoyed listening to his program.
“You’re not going to be hearing it for long, mate,” Laws said in response to the email. “I think that I’ll just call it a day, and call it a day pretty soon.”
Laws said that he will “probably” retire later this year when he celebrates 71 years on air.
The radio host earlier this year decided to offload one of two formerly adjoined waterfront apartments in Sydney’s Finger Wharf. The unit was in the same complex where he lives.
Paperwork registered in September revealed the price was about $12.5m and the property exchanged off market. The buyers were understood to be billionaire steel tsar Sanjeev Gupta and wife Nicola.
John Laws shocked listeners on his 2SM breakfast show when he casually announced plans to quit
Legendary radio host John Laws has announced that he plans to retire in just a few weeks’ time, reports News Corp’s Andrew Bucklow.
89-year-old Laws casually broke the news on his 2SM radio show on Tuesday morning, after reading out an email from a listener who had written in to tell the host that he enjoyed listening to his program each morning.
Laws will go down in history as one of Australia’s most successful radio hosts, in fact former prime minister Paul Keating once labelled him “the broadcaster of the century”.
Nicknamed “the Golden Tonsils”, Laws has presented on a number of different stations over the years but is most famous for his lengthy tenure on Sydney’s 2UE.
He was first heard on the station in 1957 and did several stints before retiring from radio in 2007.
After a few years off, Laws said that he missed radio and he signed with 2SM in 2011 where he has been hosting a morning show ever since.
Business of Media
John Farnham: The voice is heard publicly for the first time in years on new audiobook
He famously declared he was “not gonna sit in silence” in his chart-topping hit.
And John Farnham is living true to his words as he speaks publicly for the first time since he was diagnosed with throat cancer two years ago, reports The Australian’s Jack Newman.
The legendary singer, 75, has narrated the audiobook of his new memoir, due to be released later this month, giving fans the chance to hear his iconic voice once again.
The audiobook of The Voice Inside will be released on October 30, and also features two chapters narrated by his wife Jill.
An excerpt from the audiobook released by publisher Hachette Australia shows Farnham discussing his “reluctance” for speaking about his life previously.
He says in the clip: “I don’t enjoy talking about myself, I really don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an egomaniac.”
The book charts his rise to stardom from his childhood in Melbourne after moving from the UK aged 10, to becoming a teen idol and releasing the highest-selling Australian album of all time.
It was co-written with Poppy Stockell, the creator and director of the documentary on Farnham’s life, Finding the Voice.
Speaking of the experience recording the audiobook, Farnham said: “It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. There were more than a few laughs, and some tears, but it made me realise how lucky I’ve been.”
How one agency found a way to juice its clients’ Google search results
A Melbourne digital marketing agency has figured out a way to save thousands of hours – and months of work – by automating the creation of thousands of category websites that dramatically boosted its e-commerce clients’ Google search results, reports The AFR’s Sam Buckingham-Jones.
Impressive Digital, founded in 2016 by Rob Tadros, works with the likes of Lorna Jane, Mitre10 and Modibodi. It has spent the past couple of years quietly building a separate business called Skailed that it hopes will become a standalone product in its own right.
Skailed, a way for second-tier retailers to get a leg up on larger e-commerce rivals, has won the 85-strong Impressive Digital team the Media and Marketing category of The Australian Financial Review 2024 BOSS Most Innovative Companies awards.
It began a couple of years ago, when one of Impressive’s search engine marketing specialists, Sam Makwana, approached his boss with an age-old online problem: it is impossible for second-tier merchants to compete with the big end of town for generic keywords on Google.
Channel 4 posts record loss during advertising downturn
UK broadcaster Channel 4, led by CEO Alex Mahon, reported a record full-year 2023 loss of £52 million ($68 million) amid what it called a sharp and “prolonged” advertising downturn that saw U.K. ad revenue fall 9 percent, partially due to a correction after the post-COVID boom, as well as a “strategic decision” to keep spending on its digital transformation and continued investment in original content, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
But in its annual report and a press conference related to it, the public service broadcaster predicted a narrowed deficit for 2024 and a return to breakeven “over the mid-term,” while also touting signs of success in its digital push.
News Brands
Seven doesn’t want the spotlight on ‘Spotlight’
Seven’s investigative flagship TV program Spotlight, as the name suggests, is all about shining a light in dark places. That is if you believe its promotional material, reports The AFR’s Max Mason.
It’s then with no small measure of irony that the network has applied for a suppression order to keep a lid on allegations closer to home.
This revolves around claims brought by former Spotlight journalist Amelia Saw. She worked for the network for a little over a year until mid-2023. Broadly, she’s alleged the show is a hostile working environment for women.
But the specifics of her suit remain a mystery. Seven has applied to suppress various documents – presumably a more detailed statement of claim from Saw and its own attempts to keep it secret.
Television
Miranda Otto, Noah Taylor, a stolen car and the Outback? It must be the 80s
In a busy pub in Adelaide, Dylan River is turning back time for his chaotic crime caper comedy Thou Shalt Not Steal, on Stan from October 17, reports Nine Publishing’s Karl Quinn.
The air is thick with smoke, as virtually everyone in the room sucks on a dart. A fistfight breaks out and no one blinks an eye. A man leers at a woman’s breasts, says something lascivious and doesn’t get cancelled.
It’s 1981, or thereabouts, and the Land of Promise Hotel in Hindmarsh has been transformed into a bar in Coober Pedy. And if the past is a different country, the outback of the 1980s is practically a different universe.
River’s story, co-written with longtime collaborator Tanith Glynn-Maloney (the pair were responsible for Robbie Hood, the SBS series about a wayward 13-year-old Indigenous boy and his gang), centres on Robyn (Sherry-Lee Watson), a runaway from a juvenile detention facility in Alice.
All episodes of Thou Shalt Not Steal are available on Stan from October 17.