‘I’m different’: The drastic changes made by Ray Hadley after 20 years at No.1

When you take Ray Hadley to lunch, you know he won’t be shy about his opinions. After all, he has dished them out on-air every morning for more than two decades. So when I ask for his thoughts on our current political leaders, he’s forthright.

Chris Minns is strong and a good leader, but “held captive like a lot of Labor premiers by the left”. Anthony Albanese, whom Hadley has known for decades through football, is an affable bloke but “probably a gold medal disappointment”.

“My behaviour in the past has been less than admirable”: Ray Hadley had his own reckoning over workplace conduct long ago.Credit: James Brickwood

“He was a pretty ordinary transport minister under a previous regime, I think he’s a worse prime minister under his own regime,” Hadley says. “Probably a good local member and that’s about it.”

It’s a mini-miracle Hadley has squeezed in this lunch. He’s just finished his radio show, is about to fly to Brisbane to call the State of Origin decider (he’s worried about NSW: needlessly, it turns out) and heads to Paris next week to call swimming and track and field at the Olympic Games. It’s the 33rd summer Games, and Hadley’s seventh.

But here we are, early afternoon on a cold wintry day, in the nondescript dining room of Killara’s Greengate Hotel. “I didn’t pick it, my wife did,” Hadley says. “She grew up in Roseville and Killara. When she was a younger person this was her go-to pub.”

Hadley is normally the one asking the questions, but in recent days, the tables have turned. He has given several interviews to mark a truly gargantuan achievement: 20 years at No. 1 in his morning radio timeslot on 2GB, or 158 consecutive ratings surveys.

‘We are getting far too much credit ... the listening audience in 2024 is far too sophisticated to be dictated to, by me or anyone else.’

Ray Hadley

In last week’s results, Hadley was up 1.1 points to a 16.4 per cent audience share. Truck drivers, plumbers, you name it: if they’re listening to the radio between 9am and midday, there’s nearly a one in five chance they’re tuned to Hadley (2GB is owned by Nine, which also owns the Herald.)

In a town that some people think is run by radio shock jocks, Hadley has spent two decades in the thick of daily current affairs, politics, crime and justice. He has had the ear of premiers and police commissioners. And, this being NSW, he has been on the receiving end of countless defamation proceedings. Not that Hadley sees himself as particularly powerful.

“We [shock jocks] are getting far too much credit,” he says. “You have victories every now and again. The listening audience in 2024 is far too sophisticated to be dictated to, by me or anyone else.” Plus, he only has a 16 per cent share, “so that means 84 per cent out there don’t listen to me”.

Still, he is well-connected. Hadley had earlier texted Minns about a news story that was irking him: reports of unelected state planning panels knocking back housing developments during a housing crisis. Minns said he was working on it; Hadley read the reply on-air.

Ray Hadley has notched up 158 consecutive ratings survey wins, or 20 years at No.1 in his timeslot.Credit: James Brickwood

“I don’t bounce him. I just make him aware of things,” Hadley says. “Sometimes he’ll come back to me ... sometimes he tells me to get f---ed, in the nicest possible way. We don’t go out for coffee or anything. We’re not mates – he’s the premier. But he pays me the courtesy of an answer.”

It’s a fortuitous time to be lunching with Hadley because a number of issues which have factored heavily among his interests over the years have recently come to a head, from greyhound racing to domestic violence and, courtesy of the Herald’s reporting on the CFMEU, led by Nick McKenzie, union thuggery, which Hadley is red-hot about when we meet.

The Greengate dining room is surprisingly busy for a Tuesday, including a few tables of north shore ladies who lunch. I get the feeling Hadley is not a long lunch aficionado. He doesn’t drink, and I’m doing a belated Dry July, so we’re in for a cheap one.

Despite being a much more imposing figure than me, he opts for a light pan-roasted barramundi, while I go for the sirloin steak.

The sirloin at the Greengate Hotel.Credit: James Brickwood

Hadley got his start calling greyhound racing in the early 1980s, then moved up to harness racing, thoroughbreds and rugby league, before he began what he calls, in an understated way, “this talk career”.

But it was in 2001, when he moved from 2UE to 2GB, that his star really began to rise. He puts much of this down to luck, or circumstance: being in the right place at the right time.

He was hired by then 2GB owner John Singleton to call football, but at a press conference a few months later, when it was announced 2UE’s Alan Jones would also jump ship to 2GB breakfast, Singo threw in a surprise.

“I’ve just signed Ray Hadley to do mornings,” Hadley recalls Singo saying, while he stood out the back, shocked. “Unbeknownst to me. I had to get up on stage and say what a great honour it was. Then we got in the car together to go back to Sussex Street … I said, ‘What the f--k?’”

John Singleton (centre) signed Ray Hadley (left) and Alan Jones for 2GB.Credit: Ben Rushton

For various reasons, Hadley did not want to give up calling football. So began 12 gruelling years of working seven days a week: Monday to Friday on talkback, and Friday to Sunday on footy.

“[Singo] said, ‘You can’t do it, it’ll kill you’. I said it probably will. But it will illustrate to people, at a time when broadcasters were having holidays and going off, that I was a hard worker.”

That is Hadley’s second, perhaps obvious, key to success: hard work. He has little sympathy towards opponents or colleagues who take public holidays off: to him, showing up is a duty to the listeners, and one that is rewarded. “We can’t sort of pack up on Thursday and say, ‘The economy’s in trouble, the world’s in trouble – I’ll see you Tuesday’.”

Duty and loyalty figure highly in Hadley’s worldview. It’s partly why he remains a key supporter of greyhound racing, despite a major blue with the recently departed chief executive of the industry body, Rob Macaulay.

In 2015, Hadley fought hard against then-Liberal premier Mike Baird’s attempt to ban greyhound racing – a policy Baird reversed a year later, saying he got it wrong. Hadley believes it cost him the premiership. “Mike Baird’s now working for a retirement village when he was the most powerful man in the state.” (Baird, until recently, was chief executive of HammondCare.)

While Hadley agrees with many of the allegations in a recent, damning report into animal cruelty from former chief veterinarian for Greyhound Racing NSW Alex Brittan, he says the claims come from someone who ultimately wants to shut the industry down. Hadley wants it to survive.

But above all, greyhounds were where Hadley found his footing, and he’s not about to forget that. “I’d be an ordinary sort of bloke if I just said, ‘F--k you, was nice of you to give me a start in 1980, but now you’re in a bit of strife I’m up here with the hobnobs’.”

Is loyalty underrated these days? “I know it’s a hackneyed cliche, but when I was a young bloke, you’d shake hands with someone, as I did with John Singleton 25 years ago, and his word was his bond. I don’t know that in 2024 there are as many people in the world who you can shake hands with, and you know they’re never gonna dud you.”

“Very good”: The Greengate’s barramundi.Credit: James Brickwood

Hadley takes bites of his barramundi between sentences, and assures me it’s “very good”. It comes with broccolini, pea and caper tartare and smoked beetroot purée. My steak is juicy and served with a monstrous pile of fries doused in paprika, which Hadley declines to sample.

The other thing Hadley had to do to succeed was change. Media, particularly broadcast, is going through a reckoning right now over workplace behaviour, with our mutual employer, Nine, at the forefront.

Hadley had his reckoning years ago, when he was accused of bullying by former panel operator Chris Bowen. Other accusers came forward, or attested to Hadley’s legendary temper. Ultimately, the case was settled out of court.

The bill

“My behaviour in the past has been less than admirable,” Hadley says of his own volition. “I decided about 10 or 12 years ago that that behaviour was unacceptable, and that I’d take responsibility for it and apologise.”

He says he came up in a workplace culture where such behaviour, like throwing things and calling people “c–ts”, was OK. That’s not meant as an excuse, he adds: “What it means is, I’m different.” Has he mellowed? “I’ve had seven grandkids. I’ve got a great wife. I’ve got a great life. Yes, I’ve mellowed.”

Hadley turns 70 in September, a milestone with which he is completely at peace. He says he hasn’t thought about what he’ll do once his contract expires at the end of 2026.

He is bullish about the future of destination radio, even in the age of Spotify and streaming and a million other competitors. The medium’s death has been prematurely pronounced many times.

“I’ve lived through AM to FM. AM was gonna die: 44 years later, we’re still here. I’ve lived through ‘talk radio will be overtaken by music radio’, and we’re still here. 3AW is No. 1 in Melbourne, 2GB is No. 1 in Sydney.”

Hadley stresses talk radio is driven by personality. He fondly recalls seeking advice from the late radio great Gary O’Callaghan (a “really nice man and a wise, wise broadcaster”) early in his career.

“A TV camera can’t pick up insincerity. You can disguise insincerity on TV. This microphone here: your voice will always expose you if you’re insincere. When you’re happy, laugh. When you’re sad, cry. When you’re angry, get angry. In radio, you have to really think about what you’re going to say and believe in it.”

No one could accuse Ray Hadley of failing that test.

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