Clive Norman Hale (15 November 1937 – 5 June 2005) was an Australian television presenter, best known for his 38-year association with the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

Biography

Early life

Hale was born in

Cowell, South Australia Cowell is a coastal town on Franklin Harbor on the eastern side of the Eyre Peninsula, in South Australia on the Lincoln Highway 111 km south of the major town of Whyalla. It is 493 km by road from Adelaide. Franklin Harbor is a natu ...

on the Eyre Peninsula. Hale was the youngest of three children. He was educated at Norwood High School and studied art at the South Australian School of Art with the intention of being an artist.

Career

In 1949, Hale secured his first job as a newspaper boy, selling copies of '' The News''. While studying his fine arts degree in 1957, Hale obtained work at Adelaide radio station 5KA presenting a night show, before getting a job with 5DN to host the interview program ''Monitor''. In 1959, Hale relocated to Perth where he started working of the ABC, commencing his television career at ABW-2 from the first night the station was on air. While at ABW-2, he was a news presenter and hosted the station's first news maagazine program ''Roundabout''. In 1966, he returned to Adelaide to anchor the local weeknight edition of ''ABC News'' on

ABS-2 ABS-2 is a Space Systems/Loral FS 1300 satellite launched in February 2014. It is positioned in geostationary orbit at 75E and serves four continents across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and CIS countries. The satellite ...

, before hosting the local current affairs program ''

This Day Tonight ''This Day Tonight'' (TDT) was an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) evening current affairs program from 1967 to 1978. Founding When ''TDT'' premiered in 1967 it was the first regular nightly current affairs program on Australian TV, an ...

'' (or ''TDT'') the following year. With Hale as the presenter, ''TDT'' became hugely influential in South Australian politics. Hale's popularity as the host of the South Australian edition of ''TDT'' was such that the ABC printed bumper stickers saying "I like Clive". Disgruntled at the way ABC managers were censoring ''TDT'' story rundowns, Hale left the ABC in 1971 and defected to the Nine Network where he worked on

NWS-9 NWS is an Australian television station based in Adelaide, Australia. It is owned-and-operated by the Nine Network. The station callsign, ''NWS'', is an initialism of The NeWs South Australia. History Origins NWS-9 was the first television ...

's current affairs program ''Newsbeat''. Although Hale considered the journalism "incredibly tabloid", he also described it as "sort of fun". Hale returned to the ABC in 1973 when he commenced hosting ''Saturday Week'' over the summer period while ''Four Corners'' was off the air. In 1978, Hale relocated to Sydney when he was appointed as the host of the national edition of ''This Day Tonight'' but it was axed later that same year. Hale was then the national host of the replacement program '' Nationwide'' when it began broadcasting in 1979. He would present the common stories broadcast across Australia with a state-based presenter presenting local current affairs stories. Hale said it was during this period he pitched ideas to the ABC about producing programs about visual arts but to no avail. In 1982, Hale temporarily relocated to Japan where he spent twelve months working at

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

, advising them on news and current affairs. In 1988, Hale hosted an hour of highlights from the

Australian Bicentenary The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. History The bicentennial year marked Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival with the 11 ships ...

to 125 countries via satellite which he considered to possibly be his "proudest ABC moment". In 1990, Hale became the national presenter of the ABC's first late night news service on ABC TV. Hale continued in this role until 1995 when he was replaced by

Indira Naidoo Indira Naidoo is an Australian author, journalist and television and radio presenter. Education Naidoo's parents were Indian South Africans, who were politically active during the apartheid years. Her father was a dentist and her mother a tea ...

. Despite media reports to the contrary, Hale volunteered to leave the role when he was offered the job to host another series of the antiques show '' For Love or Money''. Hale also read the weekend news in NSW. Happy that he finally persuaded the ABC to do a program surrounding decorative arts, Hale hosted ''For Love or Money'' for three seasons from 1987 with regular panelists such as

antique dealer An antique ( la, antiquus; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely ...

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...

. He returned to Adelaide before his retirement in 1997. Upon his retirement in 1997, Hale said he was looking forward to enjoying many aspects of life in Sydney and exploring his interest in information technology, multimedia and the internet as well as travel and antiques. Hale developed an interest in

computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditi ...

after buying an Apple Macintosh computer in 1985.

Death

Hale died of cancer in 2005 and was survived by his wife economist Helen Lapsley and son Tony.

References

External links

''The Advertiser'' story on Hale's death
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080604235618/http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/media/s1385756.htm ABC media release on Hale's death {{DEFAULTSORT:Hale, Clive People from Cowell, South Australia People from Adelaide Australian television presenters Journalists from South Australia 1937 births 2005 deaths