Australia’s longest-serving DJ Bob Rogers has died at the age of 97, with tributes pouring in for the legendary radio host.
The veteran broadcaster died at his Mosman home in Sydney on Wednesday and has been remembered for an incredibly successful career that lasted almost 80 years.
Rogers worked at multiple stations over his career including 2SM, 2UE, 2GB and 2CH where he finished up in 2020 after two-and-a-half decades.
He began working in radio as a teenager with Melbourne’s 3XY.
Veteran journalist and close friend of the radio host, Derryn Hinch, recalled one of Rogers’ career highlights was an interview with The Beatles in 1964 during their tour Down Under.
“Today, I said goodbye to my dear friend, my ‘brother’, radio legend Bob Rogers. He died at home with his wife, Jerry, and his precious daughters there,” Hinch wrote on Facebook.
“The words legend and icon are thrown around too easily these days but Bob Rogers was both. As a kid I used to listen to him on my crystal set from across the ditch in New Zealand.
“I shall be honoured to deliver his eulogy in Sydney next week. Vale, my brother.”
Former radio and television presenter Ian Maurice praised Rogers’ “illustrious” career and his persistence to keep working into his nineties, adding he “admired” Rogers “enormously”.
Ex-2UE host Mike Carlton said Rogers was an “icon”.
“I grew up listening to “Robert B on 2UE,” was thrilled to shake his hand when I was a teenager. A lovely man, too. He was one of the radio greats and they don’t make ‘em like that any more,” he wrote on X.
Sky News Australia contributor Prue MacSween described Rogers as “one of radio’s best and a true gentleman”.
Current 2GB broadcaster Clinton Maynard shared a picture of Rogers’ old studio at the station and said it was an “honour” to host a show where he once had.
“An honour to be broadcasting this morning from the same floor where Bob Rogers spent 18 years on 2CH and where he presented his last programs from at age 93. This was his studio. Rip legend,” he shared on X.
Rogers was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in June 2010 for “service to the media as a radio broadcaster”.
He stopped presenting his morning show in 2018 after suffering a stroke on air, while continuing to present his Saturday program Reminiscing, before making the decision to retire in 2020.