Phillip Adams’ final Radio National broadcast on 27 June will be met with enormous sadness by listeners, colleagues and interview subjects across Australia and internationally.
Image: ABC Radio National: Roi Huberman
Adams announced his retirement from his long-running Late Night Live program in February saying “I had always planned to die at my microphone. But I feel this would be unfair to the cleaners. So, I’m leaving the studio, Late Night Live and the ABC under what’s left of my own steam – with decades of happy memories”.
Adams has been presenting Late Night Live since 1991, during which time, the ABC said, he had interviewed thousands of the world’s most influential politicians, historians, archaeologists, novelists, theologians, economists, philosophers and compelling conversationalists.
ABC Friends Victoria member, Dale Williamson, was so moved by the final broadcast looming that he wrote to the Division to say that it will mean the end of a 30 year relationship with “the wonderful Phillip Adams and the `little wireless program’, Late Night Live”.
“Phillip is retiring and a stable part of my life will change, and a gap will be left. It is a huge loss,” he wrote.
“No other radio program has offered the range of topics or the quality of interviewees that LNL has provided, week in, week out. My respect for Phillip is enormous, and I feel many of the people he has interviewed feel the same warmth and regard that I hold for him. He has provided an intellect able to confidently meet world thinkers, along with a curiosity that made the conversations rewarding.”
Williamson’s concern about how Adams can be replaced seems to have been shared by the ABC, which has announced that David Marr will take over as host but only until the end of the year.
Marr, a Walkley Award winning journalist, said he was “honoured and terrified. It’s going to be a ball”. Marr will take over from 15 July.
Radio National Manager, Dina Rosendorff, said replacing Phillip Adams was never going to be an easy task. "While we celebrate Phillip's career it is also exciting to welcome David, who I'm sure will resonate with the most intellectual and loyal radio audience in the country, the Gladdies and Poddies.”
Tributes
When Adams announced his retirement, a flow of tributes followed, including from regular guest, Laura Tingle, who said it had been a “privilege to be part of the Little Wireless Program, and to talk to a bloke with the brain the size of a planet, for all this time”.
“What a kaleidoscope of issues and stories he has guided us through over more than three decades on this program. How on earth will we get by without him.”
Head of Radio National, Cath Dwyer, said Adams was an “exceptional broadcaster and public intellectual, who intrinsically understands the unique intimacy of radio as a medium”.
“Over the past 30 years he’s interviewed thousands of the world’s most influential thinkers and kept us all entertained with his wit and intellect. There’s no one quite like him and no other show quite like Late Night Live. He is much loved by RN audiences we look forward to celebrating his extraordinary contribution to the Australian conversation over the coming months.”
ABC Radio colleague Richard Fidler said Adams had served Australia as a columnist, film producer, ad man and farmer, but his greatest talent had been as a broadcaster.
“With LNL, he brought informality, humanity and humour to great and weighty subjects, and a melodious voice that sat beautifully in the night air of the Australian bush, city and suburbs.”
The life and times of Phillip Adams
When Adams joined the ABC to front the program, he was already well-known for his work in Australian films and advertising. Having left school in his mid-teens, Adams has written more than 20 books and columns in the world’s leading publications.
A foundation member of the Australia Council and foundation chair of the Commission for the Future, Adams also chaired the Film, Radio and Television Board, the Australian Film Institute, the Australian Film Commission, Film Australia and the National Australia Day Council.
He is the current chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Mind at Sydney University and the Australian National University.
He was voted one of Australia’s 100 Living National Treasures in the 1997 National Trust poll and has received two Orders of Australia and numerous other awards.
ABC Friends member, Dale Williamson hopes there are more accolades to come.
“Late Night Live has been exceptional and I hope some way is found to express the gratitude of many individual listeners like me. Phillip and Late Night Live have embodied all that the ABC strives to provide for the rich and diverse democracy we want to be. Farewell Phillip. It’s been worth every hour.”
Sophie Arnold
Enews Editor