Channel 9 reporter Chris O’Keefe to fill in for 2GB drive host Jim Wilson

Nine has drafted in another of its TV stars onto 2GB with Chris O’Keefe trying his hand at radio on the flagging Drive show.

TV-type Chris O’Keefe will have “a crack at radio”, filling in for Jim Wilson on 2GB over summer.

Nine is parachuting the television journalist into the drive slot as pressure continues on the station after a year of turbulent ratings.

“I speak too much, so that is probably why I am on radio,” O’Keefe said while sitting in with breakfast host Ben Fordham to learn the ropes of the medium.

“After watching you, it was like watching Michael Schumacher in the F1s. It is amazing, it is high octane. I am really looking forward to it, it will be a good opportunity and big shoes to fill with Jimmy Wilson in the afternoons so I am looking forward to it.”

2GB has many changes since Nine took over the station, largely the introduction of television talent to the radio airwaves.

TV journalist Chris O'Keefe.

Jim Wilson at 2GB’s Pyrmont studio. Picture: Richard Dobson

The station is under increased pressure going into 2022 after earlier this year Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson pipped Fordham to win in one survey in the all important breakfast timeslot. 2GB has also been under pressure to gain ground in its afternoon and drive shifts.

For the last survey period, Wilson’s drive show came in third overall in the ratings with the next round of figures due out next week. O’Keefe will fill in for Wilson for five weeks from December.

Fordham introduced O’Keefe to industry veteran Ray Hadley at the back end of his breakfast show, asking the top radio host for advice for the rookie.

“He is here with training wheels on learning how to do radio,” Fordham announced. “Any advice for these TV types who all of a sudden want to have a crack at radio Ray?”

Straight-talking Hadley, 67, said it was late radio announcer Gary O’Callaghan that gave him the best advice of his career nearly four decades ago.

O’Keefe with his wife, Fox League presenter Yvonne Sampson.

“Just be yourself mate, that is all you’ve got to be,” Hadley said. “Garry O’Callahan said to me almost 40 years ago, ‘what is your name son?’ I said, ‘Ray Hadley’ because I thought there was some sort of secret. He said, ‘do you think you can be Ray Hadley?’ And I looked at him and thought, I can do that. He said, when you are happy, laugh; when you are sad, cry; when you get angry, get angry; just be yourself. That is the formula. Forty years later I am still here something must be working.”

News reporter O’Keefe’s response: “That was beautiful, that was poetic.”

Hadley explained that he had spoken with O’Keefe’s Fox Sports presenter wife, Yvonne Sampson, recently.

“She calls him Mr Pandemic,” Hadley said. “I said, ‘why?’. And she said, ‘no, that is all he reports on and talks about’.”

Originally published as Channel 9 reporter Chris O’Keefe to fill in for 2GB drive host Jim Wilson