As my career on radio comes to an end, I want to pay tribute

It’s official. ABC managing director David Anderson has unceremoniously dumped me on the footpath at 700 Harris Street, Ultimo, for council collection.

Phillip Adams, pictured in Sydney.

At 11pm on Thursday night David Anderson, managing director of the “taxpayer-funded ABC” (as Gerard Henderson invariably describes it), unceremoniously dumped me on the footpath at 700 Harris Street, Ultimo, for council collection. No, that’s not accurate. Some ceremony was attached – taking the form of a final interview with Laura Tingle. On most Monday nights for decades I’ve discussed our oft disgusting politics with Laura. This was my final “mingle with Tingle”.

On other nights I’ve talked with Bruce Shapiro on the rancid politics of the Failed State (calling these encounters on the US “Shapirouettes”), or “been blunt with Dunt”, the percussive Ian Dunt on the UK. No more.

As an advocate of voluntary euthanasia, I’ve gone willingly. I suspect I’ll suffer from PBD (post broadcasting disorder) and RD (relevance deprivation), although I may dull the pain of the latter by suing someone for defamation.

Thus endeth a career of over 50 years in wireless, and 33 in public broadcasting, with my previous experience in shock-jockery with the likes of cash-for-commentators Laws and Jones. As Ned said on the gibbet, “Such is life.”

Phillip Adams on ABC radio.

Since I took over from previous presenter Virginia Bell – who went on to become a High Court judge – Late Night Live has gone to air more than 6000 times, forcing me into close proximity with a pantheon of PMs, presidents and potentates, plus a plethora if not a plague of professors. Plus Nobel laureates by the score. Guinness Book of Records stuff. Pick a name, any name. Arthur? I give you Arthur Miller, Arthur C. Clarke and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. The good, the bad and the ugly have included everyone from Kissinger to Gorbachev. To list them all would require every page in the magazine. It’d be easier to list those I haven’t interviewed. Only God and John Howard.

Various forms of life-after-professional-death have been arranged by colleagues, in the form of archives available for download. And I shall linger on in X via what used to be tweets. Uninhibited by ABC rules-and-regs and self-censorship. As I am here, on this page.

Thanks to all my countless thousands of guests, regulars and randoms. Thanks to my valiant EPs and brilliant producers who did the decades of heavy lifting that made our “little wireless program” possible. Thanks to my beloved listeners, the Gladdies who’ve put up with me since the late 20th century. And good luck to my lucky successor David Marr, who inherits the best job in Australian media: the only program that allows you to interview anyone, anywhere, about anything.

P.S. Why call my listeners Gladys? Two reasons. Firstly, I see radio as the most intimate medium – essentially one-on-one, me and Gladys. Secondly, coming to Radio National from 2UE meant I was free from the tyranny and endless dread of ratings.

Management deplored my Gladys idea and ordered me to cease and desist. I disobeyed, and it caught on. I have a fond memory of a bloke as big as the proverbial brick dunny blocking a footpath and gruffly growling, “G’day Phil. I’m Gladys.” And a full house at Perth Town Hall, where thousands wore badges proclaiming “I’m Gladys.” Shades of “I’m Spartacus.”

Over and out.