'He’s been able to navigate 2GB’s snake pit and come out on top': the rise and rise of Ben Fordham

There must come a time, in the depths of his sleep or in the privacy of the toilet cubicle or presumably when he's eating, when the radio announcer Ben Fordham actually stops talking, when his mouth, that logorrhoeic loudhailer, that motor of perpetual monologue, finally clocks off. And yet it is, for me at least, impossible to imagine.

I've been with Fordham for nine hours now on this early September day and he's yet to draw breath. He started work at 5.30am when he talked about former prime minister Tony Abbott's trade credentials and a mass murder in Germany, about vandalism at Sydney's Queen Victoria Building and a robbery in Revesby; when he talked about the possibility of McDonald's suing Hungry Jack's, and a no-kissing policy at school formals. He spoke to a pair of ghost hunters and criticised Queensland's border closures. He opined and cajoled, expatiated and ingratiated.

Afterwards, as we drove in his car around Sydney's eastern suburbs, he outlined his management style ("I don't shout or scream, I just lower my voice and speak slowly"); he explained how close he is with his staff, about how he lets them pay his bills and mind his children and monitor his heart rate and caloric intake (his producer Sophia Grady has access to his Fitbit, as well as his credit cards and bank accounts). He reflected wistfully on friendships big and small, his affection for former federal treasurer Joe Hockey ("A lovely bloke") and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian ("I care about her deeply"), and his regard for former PM John Howard ("A phenomenal individual"). He is relentless, exhausting, a transmitter of uncommon wattage. Though he talks for a living, it could equally be said that he lives for talking.

In July this year, the 43-year-old journalist and TV personality moved from 2GB's Drive program, where he had been since 2011, to take over from Alan Jones on the station's much-coveted breakfast shift. Though he's worked in the media since he was 17, it is Fordham's biggest job by far, a move he likened to going into bat after Don Bradman. Fordham's ascension was one of many changes introduced when Nine Entertainment Co., the publisher of this masthead, took control of Macquarie Media in 2019, and renamed it Nine Radio.

Nine installed Tom Malone, previously head of Nine's sports division, as managing director of its radio assets, overseeing 2GB, 3AW, 4BC, 6PR and Macquarie Sports Radio. Malone put the broom through the on-air roster, replacing several presenters with Nine's in-house talent. Deborah Knight, a former co-host of the Today show, replaced Steve Price on Afternoons in Sydney and Brisbane, while Neil Breen, formerly a Nine News sports reporter, took over the breakfast slot in Brisbane.

But Fordham's was the most critical appointment. "This is a once-in-a-generation change," Malone says of Fordham, who happens to be an old school friend and godfather to his daughter, Nancy. "Ben will be the voice of talkback for the next 20 or 30 years."

The stakes are high, both for Fordham and Nine. Breakfast, which runs from 5.30am until 9am, is the most important slot in radio land. "If you can get people listening to your station at breakfast, generally speaking, they stay with you through the day."

This was especially the case with Jones, who had dominated Sydney talkback for decades, first at 2UE in the late 1990s, then at rival station 2GB. Toward the end of his tenure, an average of 476,000 people tuned in every week in Sydney. With that popularity came power – politicians courted him, business wooed him – and perhaps more importantly, profits. Of the roughly $46 million in 2GB's annual revenues in 2019, Malone says $12 million came from Jones's program alone.

Jones was on $4 million a year, making him the highest-paid talkback announcer in the country. But he was his own worst enemy. In 2012, he suggested that the then prime minister Julia Gillard should be "put in a chaff bag and thrown out to sea". In 2018, he cost 2GB some $3.75 million in payouts to a Queensland family he'd defamed on air. And when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern criticised Australia's climate policy, in 2019, Jones said she should be given "backhanders". The comments sparked a boycott from advertisers. More than 80 brands abandoned his program, halving its revenues.

Jones apologised on air but the station continued to bleed money. Together with COVID-19, the boycott led to a 78 per cent drop in Nine Radio's profits in the 2020 financial year. In May this year Jones departed, his $4 million contract paid out in full. "Ben is a bit of a golden boy at Nine," says Peter Saxon, who runs radioinfo, a broadcast industry website. "By paying out Jones and replacing him with Fordham, the company has made a $4 million bet they can't afford to lose."

He combines first-rate news instincts with a dogged charm; well-favoured and perpetually youthful, there’s something of the cruise-boat entertainer about him.Credit: James Brickwood

When I ask people what they regard as Fordham's main challenge, many say "not being Alan Jones". Likewise, when I ask about Fordham's main advantage, many say "not being Alan Jones". As controversial as he was, Jones guaranteed his listeners a fire-and-brimstone performance every morning, his voice swooping Valkyrie-like from the highest dudgeon to a paternal cooing, often in a single sentence, as if he were narrating an opera in his head.

Fordham's bandwidth is narrower but more user-friendly. He can do umbrage and outrage, as the moment requires, but he's also a skilled interviewer. (Anthony Albanese, who had a regular slot with Christopher Pyne on Fordham's Drive, says, "Ben was always prepared to listen and to have [a] respectful discussion.") His politics are less partisan: he'll have right-wing federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly on one day and former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd the next. He combines first-rate news instincts with a dogged charm; well-favoured and perpetually youthful, there's something of the cruise-boat entertainer about him. For 2GB's ageing, conservative audience, Fordham could almost be a son. Or grandson.

"Jones's listeners were fanatical geriatrics with one foot in the grave," says journalist and former 2UE announcer Mike Carlton. "[Nine] will be hoping that Fordham can attract younger listeners who won't die in the next five years, while pleasing the existing ones. But that's like the circus trick where the guy rides around the ring with a foot on each horse. The potential for disaster is high."

Well-favoured and perpetually youthful, there's something of the cruise-boat entertainer about Fordham.

So far, at least, the signs are good. According to radio ratings released in late September, Fordham held 17.3 per cent of the Sydney breakfast audience, just a whisker behind Jones, who had scored 17.9 per cent in his final survey. (ABC Sydney Breakfast came second, with 12.5 per cent.) The November survey saw Fordham drop to 16.1 per cent, still well ahead of ABC Sydney Breakfast, which fell to 10.6 per cent. He has also managed to lure back advertisers, doubling revenue since taking over, according to Malone. "Ben is a great salesman," says Ray Hadley, who hosts the program that follows Ben Fordham Live. "He's an inherently commercial being."

Fordham is happy to go the extra mile for advertisers, whom he often meets in person. He describes himself as "brand-friendly"; others see him as overly accommodating. In June, Kyle Sandilands, the morning announcer at KIIS 106.5, called Fordham a "prostitute … He'll say anyone's name for any amount of money." According to one long-time 2GB producer, "Most announcers will meet with new clients. They'll be friendly with them. But a client would leave a meeting with Ben expecting an invitation to his Christmas party."

ABC TV's Media Watch has highlighted several instances in which Fordham has used his program to personally endorse the Man Shake, a meal replacement food, without mentioning that his younger brother Nick co-owns the company. (Fordham says Media Watch misrepresented his comments.)

Ben Fordham with brother Nick, who now runs the family business.Credit: @BenFordham9/Instagram

Nick Fordham, who is three years younger than Ben, runs the Fordham Company, a talent management business started by their late father and media identity, John. Many of Nick's clients have featured on Ben's program, including financial expert Mark Bouris and controversial former NSW detective Gary Jubelin. A particular favourite is Matt Wright, the helicopter pilot and wildlife adventurer, who has appeared on Fordham's program several times to talk at length about his TV series, Outback Wrangler.
(Wright is a client of Nick, who is also an executive producer on Wright's show.) When Ben wanted to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry, he took a call from a man called John Azar, owner of Good Beer Company, another of his brother's clients. Fordham mentioned the company twice on air, before going on to list Azar's three pubs.

Fordham rarely if ever discloses his brother's business links to these people, but denies offering Nick's clients preferential treatment. "My brother has a whole list of other clients who I don't have an interest in talking to on the radio," he says. "I have a simple premise about whether or not I do a story. Do I care about it, or do I think that listeners are going to care about it?" But the brothers' relationship has raised eyebrows in the industry. As one observer views it: "Nick manages the talent, Ben is front-of-house."

Fordham's trademark cheekiness has so far allowed him to minimise such concerns. In May this year, he and Hadley were chatting on air when Hadley
mentioned that his daughter had stolen his ugg boots. Fordham then asked an Aussie ugg boot company to donate a pair in return for "a free plug". Sure enough, 10 minutes later, the owner of a company in Junee phoned in to offer Hadley a pair of their boots. Hadley insisted on paying, lest it be interpreted as "cash for comment". Fordham just laughed: "I'm happy to roll with that!", before going on to mention the company's website three times, noting they had some "really beautiful designs".

With dad John, who involved him in the family business. John passed away in 2019.Credit: @BenFordham9/Instagram

Ben Fordham was born into a media family. His father, John, started as a reporter for The Newcastle Sun, before moving into public relations for Qantas. In 1979, John left the airline and started The Fordham Company in the family's garage, in the northern Sydney suburb of Frenchs Forest.

"Growing up, there was no way of separating work and family," says Fordham. "When Mum and Dad were negotiating a deal or sorting out a problem, we were part of it."

The kids were steeped in the business. They absorbed the art of networking and the value of loyalty. Important people would come around for dinner: John Howard, cricketer Ian Chappell, winemaker Brian McGuigan. It was a conservative upbringing. "Mum and Dad hated the government getting involved in their lives," he says. "They liked the idea of lower taxes and less regulation."

“Growing up, there was no way of separating work and family. When Mum and Dad were negotiating a deal or sorting out a problem, we were part of it.”

Fordham went to Riverview, a Catholic boys school on Sydney's Lower North Shore that's the alma mater of Tony Abbott and former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, among others. When he was 15 he did a week of work experience with Alan Jones at 2UE. By 16, he was working for $60 every Sunday during the football season in the sports department, where Ray Hadley was his boss.

"Ben was very enthusiastic and hard working," Hadley recalls. "He wanted to make his mark." After school, in 1995, Fordham secured a cadetship in 2UE's newsroom. Figuring that people on radio had to talk for extended periods of time, he practised by talking to himself every day on the drive to work.

At the age of 20, Fordham was appointed 2UE's political correspondent, working out of Parliament House in Canberra. In 1997, when 1000 tonnes of mud and sludge engulfed two ski lodges in Thredbo, Fordham talked his way past police barriers to be the first journalist reporting from the disaster site. (His coverage won him the 1997 Walkley Award for radio journalism, and a Raward, Australian radio's top accolade.)

After a short stint at Sky News, Fordham ended up at Nine as an entry-level researcher on A Current Affair. He'd been there for three weeks when he walked into the office of then executive producer David Hurley and told him he'd learnt everything there was to know about being a researcher and wanted to be a producer. "I was signing some mail at the time, so I wasn't really listening," says Hurley. "I remember looking up and saying, ‘Did you say what I think you said?' " Hurley told him it took at least a year to become a producer, and that, in so many words, he needed to learn his place. Fordham blushed, "which was the first and last time I ever saw Benny do that".

Hurley eventually "let [Fordham] loose" as a reporter on the program, where he earned a reputation as a tabloid terrier, ambushing sex offenders and chasing crooks down back alleys, microphone in hand. He had enormous energy and a gift for showmanship. In 2004, a confrontation outside a Paddington restaurant with self-styled property tycoon Cameron Donald led to Fordham being punched in the face. "The owner of the restaurant came out and offered to mop up my face," Fordham tells me. "But I was like, ‘No, no, let me do the shot first.' "

Fordham had a whatever-it-takes mentality. "He didn't let the rules hinder the outcome of a story," says David Gyngell, a former Nine CEO. "He was prepared to put himself where a lot of others weren't." In 2008, Fordham posed as a hitman's accomplice while secretly filming James Markham, a former mayor of Waverley in Sydney, discussing a plan to kill a male escort. (Fordham was later found guilty of illegally recording a private conversation but escaped conviction. Markham was never convicted.)

His rivalry with Naomi Robson of Channel Seven's Today Tonight epitomised the ruthlessness of current affairs TV. Fordham would gate-crash her stories,
and on one occasion scuffled with her camera crew.

Tensions came to head in 2006 with a story about Wawa, a young boy in remote West Papua whose people reportedly practised cannibalism. After Wawa's parents died in close succession, his fellow villagers accused him of witchcraft and made plans to eat him. Fordham travelled to the village to cover the saga for 60 Minutes. The story, which aired in May that year, was a ratings bonanza, attracting more than two million viewers.

Shortly afterwards, Robson and Today Tonight headed to West Papua for a follow-up story, one that promised even greater ratings for Seven. But before Robson could reach Wawa's village, she and her crew were detained by Indonesian authorities and had their passports confiscated. According to Peter Meakin, Seven's director of news and current affairs at the time, Nine sabotaged Today Tonight's story by tipping off the Indonesians. Seven also accused Fordham of offering a man who had participated in his initial 60 Minutes story $100,000 to not help Robson. (Fordham denies this.)

Last year, Garry Linnell, Nine's then head of current affairs, admitted that he did indeed wreck Robson's story. "I never spoke to the Indonesians," Linnell tells me. "But I spoke to someone who did." Meakin said Nine's behaviour was potentially dangerous. "It was a nasty thing to do and beyond the pale," he tells me. When I ask him about Fordham, however, he describes him as "talented" and "hard working", adding: "He's a very resourceful journalist."

One of Fordham's key assets is his likeability. Nine has leveraged this by having him co-host the family-friendly TV series Australian Ninja Warrior for the past four years. When Fordham took charge of 2GB's breakfast show, in June, Nine spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ad campaign, plastering his face on billboards around Sydney and the back of buses.

Fordham is also known for helping young journalists get a leg-up in the industry, plucking cub reporters and producers from relative obscurity and helping to place them in high-profile jobs. Liz Daniels, who worked as a
producer on Fordham's Drive show and is now Nine's NSW state politics reporter, describes him as "very supportive … I owe him for the position I'm in right now." Harriet Glenn, a media advisor to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, also worked with Fordham on Drive. She still seeks his advice, whether it be on job offers or stories, and even buying property. "When I started [on Drive], Ben went out to dinner with my parents, to make sure they were comfortable with who I was working for." Glenn says her grandmother still knits quilts for Fordham's three young children, who range in age from five to one. Friend and fellow journalist Hedley Thomas describes Fordham as "one of the really good guys in media".

Others regard Fordham's mentoring as more transactional. "Ben builds armies of supporters, young women, usually, who back him," says veteran Canberra journalist Samantha Maiden. "He'd tap them to feed back information and tips. And that's what a good journo does. But there's certainly an element of, ‘You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.' "

Ben Fordham with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.Credit: @BenFordham9/Instagram

A former 2GB producer tells me that "Ben sees the value in people and does whatever it takes to extract it". Other past and present 2GB staffers tell me Fordham can have an explosive temper. "He will scream and yell at you, then take you out to dinner," one tells me. "I hated every moment of working for him."

In 2014, a story in The Australian headed "Complaints dog Ben Fordham" featured two young women who claimed they were bullied by him. Neither was willing to be identified. Another woman describes to me how she received daily verbal abuse while working for him. Getting critics to go on the record, however, is virtually impossible. As a current 2GB staffer tells me: "Ben knows everyone. I could say something but I really need my job." Former employees cite non-disparagement clauses in their termination agreements that prevent them from speaking out.

Fordham admits he can be demanding, but denies abusing anyone. "The overwhelming majority of people who have worked for me will tell you that they have had an enjoyable experience filled with maximum pressure and extraordinary obligations."

Ben Fordham with journalist wife Jodie Speers.Credit: @BenFordham9/Instagram

Fordham lives in a five-bedroom house on Sydney's Lower North Shore with his wife Jodie Speers, a Channel Seven journalist and presenter, and their three young kids. The house, which the couple bought for $4.5 million in 2016, is tastefully renovated; there's a pool, lawn, a light and airy kitchen.

Fordham has something of a "Mi casa es su casa" policy for staff, who are welcome to stay overnight if they need to. They're also free to visit Fordham's parents' beach house at Avoca. His producer and executive assistant, Sophia Grady, has almost become a de facto daughter, even going on Fordham family holidays. One day I turn up at his house to find her washing dishes.

Fordham's renowned energy can sometimes verge on mania. After his show he invites me to lunch, but says he has to do a "few chores" first, for which I can tag along. His godsons require lollies for their birthdays, so we stop at a convenience store in Redfern that stocks rare sweets, including scorpion lollipops from Mexico and 11 different flavours of Fanta, and where the owner, Hazem, greets him in a welter of hugs and salutations.

Five minutes later we're standing in front of the Redfern terrace where Fordham and Speers lived before moving to the north shore. He points to the terrace next door and says it belongs to Kirk Docker, creator of the show You Can't Ask That, and another "great mate". Docker isn't home, so Fordham retrieves a spare key from a hiding spot and lets himself in. Next thing I know we're standing in Docker's living room. It's not entirely clear why we're here, but it doesn't matter because 30 seconds later we're off to Fordham's mother's place in Paddington, where he raids her extensive wine collection en route to Verde, a fine diner in Darlinghurst.

At the restaurant, the head waiter, a dapper gentleman named Ronnie, greets Fordham like a blood brother – smiles, hugs, back slaps – before ushering us upstairs. Already seated at a table by the window is his producer, Zac McLean, along with Ryleigh Geddes, his 19-year-old panel operator, and another young producer, Jake Lyle. Over arancini balls and stuffed zucchini flowers, McLean explains Fordham's approach to broadcasting, which he sums up as "solutions based". "Other programs will hear a bad story but Ben's first instinct is to do something to fix it."

In March, Fordham took a call from a woman in Victoria whose father's funeral was due to take place just hours after the new COVID-19 restrictions
took effect, meaning only 10 of the father's 11 children could attend.

"Straight away I texted the PM and got him involved," says Fordham. Three hours later, the problem was solved. Fordham also went above and beyond for Mark and Faye Leveson, whom he'd interviewed many times about the disappearance of their son, Matt. When Matt's remains were found, in 2017 in the Royal National Park south of Sydney, Fordham and his team arranged to "bring Matty home". They transplanted the palm that had grown over Matthew's body to the Levesons' backyard, which was turned into a sanctuary. Mark Leveson says he was "humbled" by Fordham's efforts.

More broadly speaking, it's hard to tell how much influence Fordham has, partly because he's so prone to boasting about it. At one stage he tells me how, in the course of a single lunch in Sydney in 2014, he managed to convince the then opposition minister for immigration, Richard Marles, to reverse Labor's stance on border protection. (A spokesman for Marles says this is incorrect.)

He's also partial to bomb-throwing. Between March and August of 2017, he interviewed former prime minister Tony Abbott no fewer than 20 times, providing him with a regular platform to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull's leadership. "I told [Abbott] he could come on every couple of weeks and do ‘The view from Manly', and talk about local events and do a bit of a surf report, knowing of course that he would talk about politics and Malcolm Turnbull. And he did."

Legend has it Dean Martin once told Frank Sinatra: "It's your world, Frank; I just live in it." It's a little like that with Fordham. The friends, the connections, the stellar career … the love. At one stage during lunch, a man approaches our table out of nowhere. "Ben! Ben!" he says. "I can't thank you enough!" Turns out he's the son of an elderly doctor who the Medical Council of NSW wanted to shut down, on account of the fact that he didn't have a receptionist and wasn't using computers. "It was ridiculous," says Fordham. "So we had a big campaign on air to have him reinstated."

“If he continues on his trajectory, he is likely to be one of the top-flight interviewers of his generation.”

Later, we're standing by the window of the restaurant overlooking the street when Fordham spots a black Rolls-Royce Phantom driving by. "Oh look, it's Kyle!" he says. "I'll call him." The next minute, Sandilands comes huffing and puffing up the stairs, red in the face. He sits down heavily. I ask him about Fordham. "They actually offered me the job first," Sandilands says. "But they went with Ben. They obviously wanted to bring it down a level. Ha ha!"

Sandilands calls Fordham "a good operator". Then, just like that, he's gone, down the stairs, back into his Phantom. Fordham pours some more wine, a silky 2014 vermentino, and winks at me from across the table. "It's almost like I arranged that!"

“Ben is the consummate pragmatist. He’s been able to navigate 2GB’s snakepit and come out on top.”Credit: James Brickwood

Ben Fordham has immense faith in his own ability. He believes he got this as a child, debating around the kitchen table with his family. For the most part it has served him well, shunting him, like an engine, through the various stations of his career.

"I wanted to be on radio – I did that," he tells me. "I wanted to read the news – I did that. I wanted to be on TV – I did that."

But nowhere is such self-belief more important than in talkback radio. "Radio is the most egotistical form of media," says Mike Carlton. "You are sitting by yourself in a soundproof room in the arrogant assumption that there is a vast audience out there wanting to hear what you have to say."

There are less than a dozen prime-time talkback jobs in Australia. The competition is fierce, which is why radio can be such a gruelling business. 2GB is said to be a particularly combative place to work, with internecine rivalries that would make the Medicis quail. It's said that Jones and Hadley despised one another, and that Hadley's relationship with Fordham is similarly fraught. ("It's fair to say that Ray hasn't always been my biggest fan," says Fordham. "We've had times when we've had a major bromance and times when we've been at each other's throats. It's the nature of the business." Hadley declined to comment.)

“We’ve had times when we’ve had a major bromance and times when we’ve been at each other’s throats. It’s the nature of the business.”

According to some sources, Fordham and Jones' relationship has also had its ups and downs. A senior Nine Radio figure tells me that up until two years ago, Jones "detested" Fordham and had complained to management about him, not only because of his ego, which was "out of control", but because of his habit of poaching Jones' on-air talent and for Fordham's reluctance to play "pointers", short cross-promotions for other announcers' programs. (Jones denies ever having clashed with Fordham or complaining about him to management, suggesting instead that it was in fact Hadley who had done so, "over and over again". Jones adds: "I suspect this stuff is coming from someone else and is about someone else, not me.") Either way, when Jones left, he threw his support behind Fordham. Before long, Alan and Ben were arm in arm, smiling for the camera.

That he emerged from all this smelling of roses is typical Fordham. As his one-time boss David Hurley puts it, "He's got a tin arse and never sits anywhere wet." Hedley Thomas puts it another way. "Ben is the consummate pragmatist. He's been able to navigate 2GB's snake pit and come out on top. You can't do that if you're not strategic and pragmatic." Now, according to Thomas, Fordham has it all ahead of him. "If he continues on his trajectory, he is likely to be one of the top-flight interviewers of his generation."

Fordham, not surprisingly, is equally positive. After all, positivity is one of his habits. Every morning, just before going on air, Zac, his producer, finds an inspirational quote, which he reads aloud to Fordham and the team. The morning I visited the quote was: "Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud."

"Dolly Parton?" asked Fordham, trying to guess the author.

"No, Maya Angelou."

"I like it," said Fordham, rubbing his hands together. "Let's go do the show."

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.

Have a Good Weekend all week

We deliver the best of Good Weekend to your inbox so it’s there when you’re ready to read. Sign up for the Herald's Good Weekend newsletter here and The Age's here. Sent every Saturday.