Clive Robertson, former radio and television broadcaster best known as presenter of Newsworld, has died at age 78.
He had been diagnosed with cancer.
His early working life in Western Australia was as an apprentice at the steam locomotive depot at WA Railways. After a few years he switched to radio broadcasting, firstly in Albany, then Bunbury and, in 1968, joining 6IX in Perth. At this time he also scored television work at STW9, Perth, before moving across to join ABC radio in Sydney, taking over the breakfast shift in 1974.
The breakfast program established his dry-witted style, sparring with colleagues including Caroline Jones and Margaret Throsby.
In 1979 he hosted Six O’Clock Statewide for ABC television and, in 1982, he took over from John Laws as the ‘beast’ on the daytime panel show Beauty And The Beast, which reunited him with Throsby. In the mid-1980s he joined the Seven Network to host news program Eleven AM.
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His unconventional, sometimes blunt, newsreading style saw him seamlessly move from daytime to the late night news program Newsworld in 1986. The show’s success led to Nine persuading Graham Kennedy out of retirement to fight Newsworld with Graham Kennedy’s News Show in 1988. Both shows continued in battle until the end of 1989, with Kennedy exiting Nine and Newsworld axed by Seven. Robertson was soon back in the same timeslot, at his old rival Nine with Robbo’s World Tonight.
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He continued working in radio and later returned to television as presenter of ABC’s Agony Aunts.
Clive Robertson was married twice, the second time was in the 1980s to actress Penny Cook.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney Morning Herald, 28 April 1974, 26 February 1979. TV Week, 13 July 1985.
