Bob Rogers confirms radio retirement
28 September 2020
After 78 years on the radio, Bob Rogers is calling it quits. This year marks his 25th anniversary at Classic Hits 2CH Sydney, the music station where he spent 23 years hosting mornings before he handed the microphone to Tim Webster in 2018.
The announcement follows the revelation that the station's new owner, Pacific Star Network, plans to permanently move 2CH to DAB+ in favour of installing its SEN sports format.
Rogers’ retirement marks the end of a career that remains unparalleled in the radio history books, a working life that began at 3XY Melbourne as a panel operator in 1942.
In 1995, he accepted an offer from advertising guru John Singleton to join 2CH where he will end his amazing 78-year run during his Reminiscing show on 3rd October 2020.
After almost eight decades on the radio, Bob Rogers is calling it quits.
Bob Rogers at 2SM in the 1960s, where he shot straight to #1
Bob Rogers remembers being upset when his sister criticised his performance - playing a soldier's son - on a radio show when he was a scrappy early teenager whose voice had yet to break. "She said, 'You'll never have a job in radio with a voice like that' and she laughed," he said. "I cried." His sister could hardly have been more wrong.
The smooth-talking Rogers, now a spirited 93, has announced he is finishing as a broadcaster after a career lasting a remarkable 78 years.
There may be another radio announcer somewhere who has been working continuously in the industry since 1942 – Rogers started as a panel operator at Melbourne's 3XY when John Curtin was prime minister and the country was deep into World War II – but there won't be anyone who can reel off as many colourful stories.
A pioneering disc jockey who was called the fifth Beatle when he toured with the world's biggest pop group in the early 1960s, Rogers will present his final Reminiscing show on Classic Hits 2CH on Saturday night. His departure after 25 years at the station comes after its new owner, Sports Entertainment Network, announced it will launch a sports format and make 2CH a digital station next month.
"I'd never heard a radio until I was 10 years old," Rogers said from his Mosman home as he prepared for his final show. "I was born on the soldier's settlement on the border of the Mallee in Victoria. We were very poor and I can still remember the day that I was helping my father and a fellow came along in an old truck selling mantle radios. My father bought one."
The young Rogers became fascinated that he could hear a show that was broadcast as far away as Tamworth.
"It was like hearing the other side of the world," he said.
After his stint as a panel operator, Rogers moved to Mildura to become an announcer then became an early DJ at Brisbane's 4BH. As radio managers wondered how to counter the popular new medium of television in 1958, Sydney's 2UE launched a Top-40 format and brought in Rogers to become the country's top DJ.
He later became one of 2SM's famous Good Guys when it was the country's hottest radio station and branched into television presenting.
In 1964, Rogers was dispatched to tour with the Beatles, which meant interviewing Paul McCartney and John Lennon every second day in Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.
He remembers celebrating McCartney's 22nd birthday in Sydney with a toy kangaroo as a present and, another time, being asked by Lennon to bring over a teenager he was keen to meet who became his girlfriend while he was in town.
"I had to get her through the high security that always existed around the Beatles," he said. "It turned out to be Jenny Kee, who went on to be a very successful fashion designer."
Rogers had one of Australian radio's most famous feuds with John Laws that dated back to when they both worked at 2UE. Management had asked Rogers to sign a two-year contract after Laws suddenly jumped to 2SM.
"I said, 'I'll only sign it if you put in an extra clause saying if you ever want John Laws back, I have the right to leave' because he's very difficult to work with. They put in that clause and, sure enough, 12 months later John Laws wasn't doing very well at 2SM and wanted to come back but he couldn't. They took him on in Newcastle – he went to live [there] – and I don't think he ever forgave me for that." It was not until a lunch organised by veteran singer Col Joye last year that they ended their feud. "I didn't care any more," Rogers said. "We were mature people."
Any regrets?
"I could have had a lot more photos taken with the Beatles, and should have," Rogers said. "When the Beatles' tour was over and I was completely exhausted from it all – every day that madness of the screaming teenagers – I said, 'I reckon no one will want to know the Beatles in two years' time because they're so over-exposed'. That was 56 years ago.
"[And] when talkback radio came in, I said I didn't want to do it because people would not want to listen to backyard over-the-fence gossip, not realising that people like Alan Jones would use it to phone out rather than take calls in. I still get sick of everybody who phones a talkback compere and says, 'How are you?' [I'd say] 'I've bloody well told the last 10 people I'm well. Get on with it!'"
What does he see as his contribution to the radio industry?
"I picked a lot of hit records when I was supposed to be the hottest disc jockey in town," he said. "Records that no one else would think of playing. We all played the American hits but no one else would have been game to play Slim Dusty's 1957 'A pub with no beer', which probably became one of the greatest Australian hits of all time."
Classic Hits 2CH general manager Cherie Romaro puts Rogers' longevity down to being different to other broadcasters, evolving with his audience around the country and his meticulous preparation for his shows. "He still knows when some huge artist brings out a new song and he can talk about music from the '20s and '30s right through to 2020," she said.
Rogers thinks it's the right time to leave, with a minor stroke 18 months ago slowing him down and making him less mobile.
"I'm looking forward to it in a way," he said. "I don't know whether I'll miss it or not. I probably will but, at 93 – other than Tony Bennett who's the same age – I think it's time we gave the young fellows a bit of a go."
Garry Maddox is a Senior Writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.
