This was published 1 year ago
‘I couldn’t ignore it’: Virginia Trioli reveals why she quit ABC radio
By Karl Quinn
Virginia Trioli has revealed the precise moment during her prolonged period of absence this year that she decided to quit ABC radio.
“Probably my husband’s third hospital admission,” she says. “It became pretty clear to me that these kinds of hours and this kind of job was not going to be sustainable.”
Trioli accepts a coffee from fellow broadcaster Matt Preston just minutes after finishing her shift on Thursday.Credit: Paul Jeffers
Her husband’s diagnosis with a serious heart condition just before Christmas came as a profound shock. “The clarion bell you hear in that moment, ‘hang on a minute, how long are we here for?’, that was real, and I couldn’t ignore it.”
He is “tremendously well” now, she says, a testament to Melbourne’s medical facilities. “I often say this to friends of mine – if you’re going to get a challenge in the cardiovascular system or whatever, get it in Melbourne.”
Trioli spoke to this masthead just hours after telling her listeners on Thursday that September 15 would be her last show as host of Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.
She also revealed that she would be moving to television as host of a primetime program on which she will interview leading figures from the arts and creative industries. The as-yet untitled show will go to air next year.
The shift marks a return to the arts, where she began her career as a publicist for a book publisher, as well as a sign that the ABC is attempting to win back favour with a community angered over its restructure in May, when a stand-alone arts news division was axed and two senior arts editors made redundant.
“It is the creatives and the creative economies that brought our cities and our communities back to life after the pandemic,” Trioli says. “I include hospitality as well. It wasn’t business, and it wasn’t office workers, they didn’t bring our places roaring back to life. It was the performers, and the artists and the musicians and those who are part of the creative economy.”
Covering the arts is a charter obligation of the ABC, and with the cost-of-living crisis, the organisation needs, she says, to bring arts to people who might not be able to afford tickets to live events and performances.
While previous forays into the area haven’t always yielded great audience figures, Trioli insists a primetime arts offering need not be seen as a hard sell.
Virginia Trioli has hosted ABC Radio Melbourne’s morning show since 2019.Credit: ABC
“But having said that, something as important as celebrating the creative economies and cultural figures in our country, I don’t ever want that to be measured by our really flawed rating system,” she adds.
Trioli has been the host of ABC Melbourne’s morning program since 2019 but has been a regular face and voice in the early part of the day for ABC audiences for almost two decades.
In 2005, she moved to Sydney to host ABC’s morning radio shift, leaving that role at the end of 2007. The following year, she joined the line-up of ABC TV’s News Breakfast, alongside Barrie Cassidy, Joe O’Brien, Paul Kennedy and Vanessa O’Hanlon. She remained a key part of that show until May 2019, when she was announced as the replacement for Jon Faine, who had hosted the ABC’s morning program – on 774 and then the rebranded ABC Radio Melbourne – since 1996.
“After many years of daily broadcasting, and almost two decades of rising for the toughest alarms the ABC has to offer, life circumstances require me to work and live differently now,” she told her listeners on Thursday.
Speaking to this masthead, she admitted that, like many in the general community, she had become tired of the relentless onslaught of stories about the bleaker aspects of life.
“I’m a little tired of news,” she says. “It’s the nature of these sometimes very despairing stories without end. I started with smoke filling the city – a week after I started – then we moved into Black Saturday and all of that summer, then we’re into pandemic, then we’re into floods, and then we’re into cost of living.
“The last four years have felt very long,” she adds. “For everyone in my audience, it has been the most life-changing and exhausting time for people. And life-changing for me too, really.”
Contact the author at kquinn@theage.com.au, follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin, and read more of his work here.
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