Veteran broadcaster Clive Robertson, best known for Newsworld, has died, aged 78.　He passed away following a battle with cancer.　Robertson began his broadcasting career in 1972 with the ABC before moving to Seven in the 1980s.　He spent his later years on Adelaide radio having worked across 6VA, 6TZ, 6IX, 2UE, 2GB, 2SM, ABC Classic FM, 2UE and Radio National.

In 1972 he joined the ABC in Sydney, beginning on the radio station 2BL. A well known part of his breakfast show was his daily tête-à-tête with either Caroline Jones or Margaret Throsby. He also presented the 7 pm news for ABC Television.

In 1980, he worked at 2DAY-FM, but returned to the ABC some months later.

From 1982 to 1988 he was host of the Beauty and the Beast on 10.

Leaving ABC radio, he then moved to the Seven Network where he hosted 11AM, and in 1985 became the host of late night’s Newsworld. The show, which was a contemporary to Graham Kennedy’s Coast to Coast, was famous for Robertson delivering the news with grumpy opinion and dry wit, often dismissing the so-called news value of stories he was expected to present.

He followsedit later with Robbo’s World Tonight on Nine, in the same droll vein.

He once told ABC’s Talking Heads, “I thought I’ll muck around and then they’ll take me off it, you see. And it didn’t work that way … I’d have to say the order of things especially at Channel 9, the order of news items. And if I said, ‘Look, this is really important’, I’d look at the camera and say, ‘This is a really important story’ and set it up, and if it was an important story, then the audience think, ‘Oh this guy’s a good filter.’ If you said, ‘Look, this is a silly item, I don’t know why we’re running it’ and you run it and it is a silly item, you’ve got them. And it’s not a con. What that program did is different from most news programs is gave things what they really were worth … and did that go down well with the journalists? Have a guess Peter. ‘He’s ruining our station” and all that rubbish. I mean, we get a new item in at, say, 10.30 at night and I’d say, ‘By the way, you’ll see this at 6 o’clock tomorrow night’ and they’ll say it’s the latest, ‘you know better’. ‘You can’t say things like that.’ Well, you know, come on, so journalists are a bit thick as you know…”

In 2006 he returned to national TV screens on the ABC’s Agony Aunts.

Once married to Penny Cook, Robertson spent his later years on Adelaide radio having worked across 6VA, 6TZ, 6IX, 2UE, 2GB, 2SM, ABC Classic FM, 2UE and Radio National.

(Story courtesy of TV Tonight and Seven News)