Melody Joy Iliffe (née Welsh, 10 April 1938 - 21 September 2017) was an Australian

Logie Award The Logie Awards (officially the TV Week Logie Awards; colloquially known as The Logies) is an annual gathering to celebrate Australian television, sponsored and organised by the magazine ''TV Week''. The first ceremony was held in 1959 as the ...

-winning news presenter.

Career

Iliffe is best remembered for becoming the first woman to co-anchor a

prime time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

news bulletin on

Australian television Television in Australia began experimentally as early as 1929 in Melbourne with radio stations 3DB and 3UZ, and 2UE in Sydney, using the ''Radiovision'' system by Gilbert Miles and Donald McDonald, and later from other locations, such as Bris ...

after she was chosen to read the 6pm news alongside

Don Seccombe Donald Harry Seccombe (born 3 April 1942) is a former Australian cricketer who played several first-class matches for Queensland during the early 1960s, and later served in local government as the mayor of Redland Shire. Born in Goomeri, Que ...

QTQ-9 QTQ is an Australian television station, licensed to, and serving Brisbane, Queensland. It is owned by the Nine Entertainment Co., and is part of the Nine Network. It broadcasts on VHF Channel 8 ( digital). QTQ began broadcasting on 16 August ...

in Brisbane in 1964. Welsh had previously been a production assistant on the station's children's program ''The Channel Niners'' hosted by "Captain" Jim Iliffe. She married Jim Iliffe in 1964. They had three children, including David who is now a media veteran himself and a long serving breakfast presenter on

ABC Southern Queensland ABC Southern Queensland is an ABC Local Radio station based in Toowoomba broadcasting to the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia. This includes the towns of Warwick, Dalby, Kingaroy and Goondiwindi. History The station began broadca ...

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 C ...

. Although she kept a low profile after her marriage, Melody Iliffe regularly appeared in television commercials for Brisbane-based electrical good retailer Chandlers throughout the 1980's. She also co-hosted QTQ-9's 25th anniversary of Queensland television broadcast in 1984 and appeared at the station's 50th anniversary celebration in 2009. Jim Iliffe died in 2005. Melody Illife died on 21 September 2017. A funeral service was held for her at St Andrew's Anglican Church in

Indooroopilly Indooroopilly is a riverside suburb 7km west of the Brisbane CBD, Queensland, Australia. In the , Indooroopilly had a population of 12,242 people. Geography Indooroopilly is bounded to the south and south-east by the median of the Brisbane Riv ...

on 29 September 2017. At the time of her death, she had eight grandchildren.

Logie Award

The achievement of being the first female newsreader in Australia was recognised at the

Logie Awards of 1965 The 7th Annual TV Week Logie Awards were presented on Friday 26 March 1965 at Palais de Danse, St Kilda in Melbourne and broadcast on the Nine Network. Gerald Lyons from the ABC was the Master of Ceremonies. American television actress Donna Do ...

when Welsh was presented with a special

for "acknowledged ability, in a man's domain."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iliffe, Melody 1938 births 2017 deaths Australian women television presenters Australian television newsreaders and news presenters