John Laws dead at 90: Tributes flow to flawed broadcasting genius
"We all make mistakes": John Laws during an ABC interview, confessing to some mistakes behind the microphone
“Hello world” were the familiar words that John Laws always greeted his army of listeners with at the start of each day’s broadcast.
The radio icon has died at the age of 90, just 12 months since he turned off his radio microphone for the last time.
The man nicknamed “the golden tonsils” ended his radio journey at Sydney’s 2SM and network stations.
Although he was best known to Sydney and Brisbane audiences, Laws started his radio journey in regional Victoria at 3BO in Bendigo in 1953.
Laws was well known enough even in his early days to warrant coverage
He was a DJ in the classic sense of the word, playing music at a number of regional stations before he graduated to Sydney and 2SM.
He soon moved to 2UE where he is credited with introducing the audience to rock ‘n’ roll music. During the 1960s he was heard in Sydney also on 2UW and 2GB. He started to build his reputation as a talkback radio personality of 2UW.
Along his radio journey he also built a huge audience across Australia as regional stations signed on to syndication deals.
Brands started to take notice too of this budding radio giant. St George Bank early on felt the wrath of customers after Laws triggered a panic in 1979 as some customers withdrew their funds after an on-air comment about a building society in trouble.
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Broadcasters supplemented their base salary with live commercial reads on air and Laws became a master at selling almost anything.
It landed him in trouble. The “cash for comment” controversy examined the financial relationship Laws and Alan Jones had with advertisers and the radio audience. In 1999 ABC TV’s Media Watch broadcast claims Laws had accepted payment from the Australian Banker’s Associations to make positive on-air comments about the sector.
When it came to defending the payments, Laws and Jones claimed they were entertainers, not journalists. In the ensuing investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (later the ACMA), the broadcasters were found to have breached the industry code. Neither broadcaster was taken off air.
There were further claims of cash for comment involving Telstra in 2004, and another investigation regarding broadcasts in 2007 saw penalties issued.
Mumbrella reported in 2009:
According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 was breached 13 times during October and November 2007, the final months of Laws’ time on the Fairfax station [2UE]. Presenters are obliged to disclose their commercial arrangements with a sponsor every time they discuss them.
Mumbrella detailed a number of other controversies during the latter years of Laws’ career from breaches of the broadcasting act to dating advice from the radio guru. Other brands that were revealed as having hidden commercial agreements with Laws included Qantas, Optus, Foxtel and Mirvac. Laws had a career-long public commercial relationship with Toyota and he was famous for voicing TV and radio commercials for Valvoline oil.
It was not only advertisers who beat a path to the door of Laws’ studio. Politicians also wooed him, knowing the power an endorsement would have when it came to election time. Laws is thought to have interviewed 17 Australian prime ministers across his career. He is reported to have considered John Howard the best, while he also had a close friendship with Paul Keating across the years.
Whenever Laws changed stations, always triggering a pay rise, ratings followed. His longest stint at any one station was with 2UE between 1988 and 2007.
The 2000s proved his most challenging when it came to ratings. He continued to host at 2UE after John Singleton invested in a new-look 2GB with Alan Jones in breakfast and Ray Hadley up against Laws in mornings.
Laws as the host of Beauty and the Beast (1970-1971)
On television, Laws was a sought-after guest, but he was less successful with programs he hosted. He appeared on everything from Bandstand with longtime friend and newsreader Brian Henderson, to Skippy (as a dodgy real estate salesman), to the advice program Beauty and the Beast, which he hosted from 1970-71.
He also fronted short-lived current affairs programs for Network 10 and Foxtel.
Other broadcasters honoured Laws in recent years, regularly calling on him as a guest. He was no stranger to the Sydney radio shows hosted by Ben Fordham and Kyle and Jackie O, both of whom broadcast tributes today.
The man who was seen to inherit most of the Laws army, though, was former 2GB morning host Ray Hadley.
In a tribute today Hadley said he first listened to Laws in 1971. It wouldn’t be Hadley without him mentioning his battle with the broadcaster.
“I was first his understudy and then his competitor,” explained Hadley, who was at 2GB and up against Laws on 2UE between 9am and noon for several years. “In 2003 he won four surveys and I won four.”
Hadley closed his tribute saying Laws was the greatest broadcaster Australia has produced.
