ABC Local Radio

From ABC

Hamish Macdonald joins 702 ABC Radio Sydney in 2025

Award winning journalist Hamish Macdonald will present the Mornings program on 702 ABC Radio Sydney in 2025 leading a group of incoming talent across the station this year.

Hamish will present the Mornings program from Monday to Thursday from Monday 20 January.

“First and foremost I’d like to pay tribute to the hard work and dedication of Sarah Macdonald. I know these are big shoes to fill.” Hamish said.

“I’m looking forward to putting my head down, getting to work from Monday and serving the wonderful 702 audience in what will be a huge year of news for Sydney.”

Leading audiences into the weekend will be journalist and presenter Kathryn Robinson who will present Mornings every Friday from Friday 31 January.

Audience favourite Dom Knight will host Friday Drive and Saturday Mornings. On Sunday Mornings renowned science and technology journalist and presenter Rae Johnston will bring audiences a mix of lifestyle, gardening, information and conversation.

Other new voices on the network this year are Chris Bath who will start her new role presenting Monday to Thursday Drive and Charlie Pickering who will present Thank God It’s Friday!.

New 702 ABC Radio Sydney Manager Katrina Palmer joined the team this month and said “I’m excited to be starting with such a fantastic line up.”

“ABC Radio Sydney is deeply connected to audiences across Australia’s largest city, breaking news and sharing stories from across the region every day.

“In 2025 we will build on these connections in new and meaningful ways and I’m eager to get started from ABC Radio Sydney’s new home in Parramatta.”

About Hamish Macdonald

Hamish Macdonald is an award-winning journalist who has covered wars, disasters, and major world events. He presents Take Me To Your Leader and co-hosts Global Roaming on ABC Radio National and The Project on Channel Ten.

Hamish has won numerous awards including a Walkley for current affairs journalism. In 2024 he won the EU-Qantas Journalism Prize and the Elizabeth O’Neill Journalism Award. He was also previously named Young Journalist of the Year by Britain’s Royal Television Society.

Overseas, Hamish has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine, the nuclear disaster in Japan, uprisings in Hong Kong and Egypt, the London bombings and the rise of ISIS in Iraq.

He has featured regularly on the ABC since 2016, hosting Radio National Breakfast, Black Summer bushfire coverage, Q&A, Australian of the Year and reporting for Foreign Correspondent.

In 2016 he became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Hamish is Patron of the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation and Ambassador for Dementia Australia.

About Kathryn Robinson

Kathryn Robinson is an Australian journalist and presenter who has presented Ten’s Meet the Press, Ten Late News and Ten Evening News and was news presenter on 6PM with George Negus.

She was a fill in presenter on The Project and a regular Friday night panellist on the program.

Since 2015 Kathryn has been a part of the ABC News team presenting on the ABC NEWS Channel. She hosted The Business for two years, presented ABC Weekend Breakfast, The Drum and One Plus One and filled in as presenter on Radio National Drive.

About Rae Johnston

Rae Johnston is a multi-award-winning journalist. A Wiradyuri and Greek woman who was born and raised on Darug and Gundungurra Country in the Blue Mountains of NSW.

Rae is a leading commentator on all things science, technology, video games and geek culture. She is the creator and presenter of Weird Tech podcast and will also present ABC Radio National’s Download This Show in 2025.

She is also a presenter on Back Roads on ABC TV and Going Places With Ernie Dingo on NITV.

Rae serves on the boards of both the Telstra Foundation and Swinburne University of Technology.

About Dom Knight

Dom Knight is a comedy writer and broadcaster who was one of the founding members of The Chaser when it began as a satirical newspaper in a small terrace house over the road from Sydney Uni. He later worked on most of the team’s ABC TV projects.

Dom’s first radio experience came in The Chaser team’s early years, hosting late night shows on a commercial music station. More recently, he’s hosted several comedy podcasts and radio shows with his Chaser colleagues.

From 2012 to 2016 Dom presented Evenings on ABC Radio Sydney, and in recent years he has filled in across the station, including on Drive this week.

Dom is also the author of nine books, most recently The Dictionary of Terrible Ideas for ABC Books.

2 Likes

Very decent appointments from the ABC

1 Like

Rae Johnston is largely unknown to those outside of her specialist reporting.

Unlikely to last as long as Simon Marnie on Sunday mornings and same for the Saturday replacement.

ABC continues to sack people for no good reason other than ticking boxes.

1 Like

I dunno if these are the right moves - but at least they aren’t falling into the trap of trying nothing and being out of ideas - they’ve had catastrophic ratings falls, they are right to be making big changes to try and right that.

3 Likes

Also, not sure what boxes they are ticking with Dom Knight

2 Likes

At least one member of the Chaser to bring in the coveted ‘18-39 year olds from 20 year ago’ demographic :white_check_mark:

They already have that demographic covered with Craig Reucassel on Breakfast :wink:

That or the ongoing perving over at AusCelebs. :rofl:

Familiarity. He seems to be first drop whenever someone is sick.

And Chris Taylor whenever he’s away. I’m half expecting Jules Morrow or Andrew Hansen to be up next if Chris is sick. I know Andrew is a fill in at 774 Melbourne, and Jules has done RN shifts.

Julian hosts Sunday Extra on RN, so they’ve got their share of The Chaser for RN.

Probably expect Chas to take over once James Valentine calls it time :laughing:

Can James Valentine call time now? Listening to him is like listening to 1khz tone turned full boar.

Ditto for Hamish McDonald actually.

1 Like

I came across an ABC Local Radio on 98.7 MHz at Harrietville that isn’t listed in the usual places. The only reference is in the ABC Goulburn Murray Wikipedia article:

It comes in strong all the way from Harrietville to Mount Hotham. There’s no listing on the ACMA databases. Is this an ‘unofficial’ retransmission? I was tempted to post this in the pirate radio thread.

It was definitely licenced once upon a time (probably in the vicinity of 10 years ago) but, like you, I noticed it fell out of the ACMA database and assumed it was off air.

From memory it was a retransmission licenced to Harrietville Television, who also rebroadcast 3VKV/Alpine FM and the 5 TV networks into that town.

1 Like

94.5 (3VKV) is still off air. Odd choice of frequency as I received JJJ Shepparton clearly.

1 Like

It’s been a while since I’ve canoed up the Ovens, so feel free to correct me, but I seem to recall the Bright signals (at least the ABCs on 88.1/88.9/89.7) made their way into Harrietville without much of a problem?

Jules does Sunday Extra on RN does he not? He at least did a couple of years ago.

Oh, in more unfortunate news. Macca is back on Australian All Over this Sunday.

Oh dear god. Why do people still tune into this bore. Surely the ABC have got more entertaining people to put on air at that time of the morning.

4 Likes

But then they’d get a call from the night nurse: “our residents are trying to sleep”…

Trevor Chappell will return to the Overnights program on Monday - Pav did his final program as the main Monday-Thursday host on Thursday.

2 Likes