Journalist Mike Gibson, best known from the Nine and Ten networks during the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 75.
With a background as a newspaper reporter, Gibson worked in radio in the 1970s, including a successful stint co-hosting the top rating morning show on Sydney station 2SM. He later worked at rival stations 2GB and 2UE and wrote a magazine column for The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Gibson joined the Nine Network in 1981, co-hosting the long-running Wide World Of Sports and Sports Sunday. He also presented sport for National Nine News in Sydney and hosted the network’s coverage of major events such as the Winter Olympics.
In 1988 he made the surprise move to the Ten Network, fronting the network’s coverage of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. He also co-hosted Good Morning Australia with Kerri-Anne Kennerley for two years, before moving on to his own show, Sydney With Mike Gibson.
The magazine show was axed amid budget cuts at Ten at the end of 1990. Following the show’s axing Gibson stayed on to present sport for Ten Eyewitness News in Sydney.
He later moved to Foxtel, where he hosted sports program The Back Page for 16 years until quitting the show in 2012.
Nine Network sports presenter Ken Sutcliffe paid tribute to the man they called ‘Gibbo’: “We are all saddened by his passing. He was a pioneer in TV sport and he did it with his inimitable and special style.”
Nine’s head of sport, Steve Crawley said: “As a story-teller, Mike Gibson had no peer. The people he wrote about you felt you suddenly knew and he had this knack of making you feel part of his stories. Gibbo is a legend of Australian sport.”
