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I'm Mark Boris and this is Straight Talk.
One of the things I get out of this, Ben, is that you're really intense.
Oh, shit, yeah. Look at the eyes.
Ben Fordham. Welcome to Straight Talk.
Hello, mate. I've worn the Mark Boris...
You have, you've got it on.
...black t-shirt on.
I used to go into radio stations with Dad on weekends.
And I'm 13, 14, I thought, I can't believe this is a workplace.
That started it and then I worked there all through year 11 and year 12.
That's pretty strategic for a young man.
A young kid to take six bucks an hour to put himself out when all your mates were going out and having their fun and stuff like that.
Are you a strategic person?
Yeah, absolutely. But do you know what it is?
It comes from fear of failure and nothing else.
And then on the Sunday before my first show, Mum and my brother and my sister came around for breakfast
and I started crying my eyes out, bawling my eyes out.
And I think the first ratings came out and we rated 70.
Use your power as Prime Minister.
Banyan, thanks for coming in the studio.
I said you're weird.
Then radio, mate, there's something special like this.
Jeez, that's a good question.
My boss has told me not to talk about this.
So, which is why...
Tom, hope you're listening.
Which is why I'll talk about it, obviously.
Welcome to Straight Talk.
I've worn the Mark Burris...
You have, you've got it on.
...black t-shirt on.
Was that your brother or your mum or someone instructed to dress a...
I've just always been watching the podcast.
No, but you get instructed by your mum still, I know that.
I mean, even when you have a little accident in the car,
you still ring up mum and say, tell her straight up that she's...
By the way, she is the matriarch of your family.
The big kahuna we call my mum.
Yeah, the big kahuna.
And I make no apologies for the fact that, yes,
when I have a small bingle in my car, as I did last week,
I ring mum and say, who's the smash repairer?
She goes, how old are you?
You know, there are those little things.
I don't know what's going to happen when mum's not around anymore
because all of a sudden that fountain of knowledge disappears
and we'll have to probably Google stuff.
Can we talk about the Fordham family for a moment?
It's not just Ben Fordham.
There's a big family.
There's a brother and a sister.
Your brother, of course, is one of my partners in this business
and your sister is successful in her own right.
And, of course, there was your dad, John, and your mum.
And, by the way, your mum and your dad,
everyone knows John Fordham as the talent manager, blah, blah,
amongst many other things that he was doing.
In my lifetime when I dealt with him because he managed me
when I did the TV show, John was a larger-than-life figure to me.
He's an older guy than me but he knew everybody and everybody knew him
and he looked like he was in the middle.
When it comes to entertainment, TV in particular, or sport,
he looked like he was in the middle of everything.
What was it like growing up with someone like your dad?
And, by the way, your mum because your mum was a backbone behind him.
I think it's interesting.
I think it's interesting.
I think it's interesting that Dad found a way of being involved
with all of the people who he admired without being a specialist
in any of their fields.
For example, he grew up loving sport and he found a way
of being involved in sport.
You know, someone like Mark Burris or Richie Beno
or Andrew and Matthew Johns, a whole range of people he's worked
with throughout his career.
Ricky's one of his greatest mates in the world.
He found a way through his business of being a PR guy
and also being then a talent agent.
He was one of the first talent agents in Australia
of being involved with all of these people who he quite liked
and quite admired even though he couldn't kick like Andrew Johns
or he couldn't bowl a ball like one of the great cricketers
who he looked after, you know.
So it was an interesting business model but Mum played this important role
in the business because Dad was the flamboyant ideas man
where Mum was the one who'd actually work out how the bills were paid.
So I remember overhearing early on because their first office was in our home where Dad
would say I've got this great deal, I've got this great thing I'm going to do, it's the
best thing ever and Mum would say I'm just having a look at the figures, based on the
figures we're going to be worse off than we were before and Dad would go how do you figure
And there'd be some complex kind of tax change associated with it.
So I used to say to my little brother Nick, just make sure when you're learning about
the Fordham company, you're learning from Veronica Fordham.
As much as you're learning from John Fordham because otherwise you'll be the most flamboyant
charismatic character in Sydney but the business will go down the drain.
Mum's just got this wonderful ability to stay calm in any situation and you know the other
thing I've learnt from her Mark is that she never, ever, ever squeals about anything.
So you can tell something to my Mum, she will never, ever, ever let slip on it.
And if someone else says to her, oh apparently Mark Burris, la, la, la, la.
Now Mark might have told her that the day before and she will still go, oh really?
And I've watched her do it and I go Mum you knew that.
And it's no big deal.
It might be that Mark broke his leg, right?
It may not be that controversial which someone will say apparently oh Mark Burris broke his
And Mum will go, oh did he?
And I go but Mum it's not even a big deal.
It's not controversial.
It's someone else's business and I don't get involved in talking about other people's
But that's a perfect fit for someone like John, your dad, Fordo, Jack, who was in everybody's
business in that if there was a problem they'd be ringing him.
Like they might have got arrested, they might have got caught out doing something.
I've got a perfect example of that.
When they were many, many years ago when they were looking after Andrew Johns and I'm sure
Joey won't mind me sharing this.
But Joey as Rugby League fans will remember.
Got busted with an ecstasy pill in London many years ago.
When that happened he called my mum, not my dad.
And he told the big kahuna listen I've been busted with an ecstasy pill in London.
And he was trying to say it's okay though because when the cops got me in the tube station
I turned my head against the wall because there were lots of Aussies around so maybe
no one saw Mum's thinking oh no this is going to be a shit show.
And Joey till this day says.
Your mum asked Australia.
It was the strangest question because my mum's like a you know a very saintly kind of figure.
She goes how many?
And he goes what?
She goes how many ecstasy pills?
And he thought that was such a strange question for my mum to ask.
But it was a practical question.
Well have you got one in your pocket or have you got ten?
Because it kind of changes the situation.
Mum then said okay one pill where are you?
What have you been charged with?
Hang on I'll get John.
And he goes nah fuck that and hung up.
Because Joey knew that.
And he goes I'll get my dad on the phone and Jack would have given him a massive spray
and kicked him in the ass because that was their relationship more of a father son.
So when they had bad news to share they'd often ring Mum and go hey listen Veronica
can you let John know.
So it was quite a good combination between the two of them.
Must have been amazing watching.
We had times growing up when there was one stage again Joey was going to switch to Rugby
This was probably a John Fordham special where there was Rugby Australia were interested
and Dad probably built it up for more than it was worth and before you know it Joey was
considering going and big money and we'd have media running around outside our house.
So that probably gave me an early exposure to this business and same for my brother as
well because he works as an agent that you know Ricky Stewart's first ever Rugby League
deal was done on our dining room table.
Ricky was playing Rugby Union for Manly.
It was so poor that he moved into a share house in Manly somewhere and Dad said mate
listen we need to give Ricky your bed and I might have been nine years old I said what
He goes Ricky needs a bed he's getting your bed don't worry you'll get it you'll get you'll
get a new one you'll get a double bed right.
So I gave my single bed to Ricky Stewart living in a share house.
He went from that to being offered money to play Rugby League and the first deal was done
downstairs at our family home and we were upstairs listening through the cracks between
Sarah Ben and Nick Fordham the three kids and we were listening in and because we knew
Ricky well and we loved Ricky he was part of our family and I remember my Dad we couldn't
hear the figure but a piece of paper was handed over with the figure on it to Dad and Dad
said well I don't want to spoil this beautiful bottle of red wine so why don't we put that
away forget about it and just enjoy the wine.
And then the gentleman from the Canberra Raiders said what do you mean he said mate we're just
we're in different stratospheres if that's what you're talking about.
And whatever was on that piece of paper was more than Ricky would have dreamed of earning
in his first year of Rugby League.
The official then went out into the backyard made some further phone calls then came back
in with a new offer and the next thing Ricky was a Canberra Raider.
So it was great watching those things unfold and you know what Ricky has been the most
loyal mate to my old man.
He's been the most loyal mate to my old man.
He's been the most loyal mate to my old man.
He's done absolutely something that we could have ever hoped for.
He's still got you know Dad died a few years ago he's still got Fordo's Bar in his house
with Dad's picture there.
He will still occasionally ring me out of nowhere and say mate I had this moment the
other day where I was thinking about this or that with your dad.
There was a moment where Ricky went through a bit of a crisis 12 months or so ago football
And Phil Rothfield called me and the Rugby League journo Buzz.
And he said mate have you spoken to Ricky?
Ricky I said no mate I'm leaving him for a couple of days because sometimes after a big loss
he just likes a little bit of fresh air and Buzz said mate I think you should call him he goes I
think without your dad here he's used to having your dad here at a time like this and you know
I'm like wow you know so you realize hang on dad I mean I realized it at the time but not only was
it a hole in my life when he went and our whole our lives but also for people like Ricky when
you're used to having someone there like that there's another guy I can think of who's a famous
face I won't embarrass him but he went through a life crisis as well two years ago and he called
me and he said mate this is the kind of time where Jack would have stepped in in other words this is
the kind of time where your dad would have stepped in and helped me so I thought all right I better
step up you know so I kind of get involved in those things as well as you do for for mates when
they're in trouble but he he he it's interesting you should say because um I remember
I was at um at a lunch down at uh Verde which was one of your dad's favorites and uh I just started
The Apprentice and uh John negotiated the deal for me alongside Nick your brother um and uh
and there was a whole lot of shit going on like you know you know usual stuff journalism you know
people some people think it's a good idea that I do it some people have a crack at me and all that
sort of stuff and I I never done it I never did it I never did it I never did it I never did it
before I had no idea but it was such a comfort to have someone else deal with it for me like
someone like your father who you know he had his allies in various publications probably not not
with everybody but certainly he so he could get his gang to support it correct and then the other
mob will no matter what happens if one mob one publication supports it the other mob is always
going to go against it that's just how that's how the entertainment industry works that's
at least the way I see it but it was so comforting for me like to be honest with you so I can actually
sort of relate to this the stories you're talking about um and Jack had his ability to sort of just
to take the problem away from you so you can concentrate on doing what you're doing he also
had a saying which was if you grab the tail you get the whole tiger yeah and that was his way of
saying if someone grabs at you you get all of us you they get all of us yeah and I've since
used that with my kids when kids are in the playground and they're going through all the
childhood stuff to do with bullying and whatever and and you're laying in bed at night time and
I've done this with a couple of my kids and I go hey just remember what happens if someone grabs
the tail and the kids say they get the tiger I heard Gus Phil Gould use that saying once
and he put it dad probably pinched it from him well I don't know why not this is about um maybe
well maybe Gus pinched it from Jack but like um Gus sort of made it set a
slightly differently his words were if you pull the cat's tail you get the whole fucking cat
and uh and I thought that's a really powerful thing to say he was talking about in relation
to New South Wales state of origin so when Gus was a coach in New South Wales he basically said
to the players if someone from Queensland pulls one of our boys out absolutely they get fucking
everyone yeah so it's all in yeah and mind you you've got to be prepared with your mate sometimes
someone will pull at your mate's tail and you've got to say to your mate hey listen maybe there's
a reason why yeah
this is happening well this might be happening one too many times but in that first moment
you go in and you go into bat for them I'll tell you a quick one on Gus if I can because you brought
him up when I took over doing the breakfast show from Alan Jones absolutely petrified about what
was coming my way I didn't want to do it Alan Jones had reigned supreme for so long I think
everyone knows his record two weeks before we were due to begin my boss Tom Malone who's also
one of my great mates organized for me and my team of producers to have a Saturday morning
at 2GB coffee pastries bit of a chat about what we're doing and what we're hoping to achieve and
he went through this whole thing and he spoke and I spoke and everyone had a chance to speak
and then Tom said just wait a moment we've got someone who wants to join us
and Gus Gould walks in and we're all sitting there going holy shit and Gus gave 40 minutes
of his best a mate and you know what I'm talking about as an order unbelievable oh and mate we're
all sitting there we are ready to bleed now for this show and what we're about to do any nerves
that we might have had leading into it have vanished and we are wanting show number one to
be now let's go you can walk on water oh mate and it was it was a masterstroke from Tom but we've
never forgotten it from Gus because he just wanted in there on a Saturday morning and I said to Tom
afterwards mate out of interest what does it cost to get
a 40 minute one-on-one Gus Gould he goes mate zero because that's the way Gus is and he wouldn't
have prepared for it he just would have he just walked in yeah Tom said look I when I was running
Wide World of Sports I was obviously working closely with Gus he goes Gus and I get along
really well Gus is a relationships kind of guy gave us 40 minutes and he looked around the room
and he went so when this bloke's in trouble who's going to have his back because that's what it was
all about it was all about are we going to be looking out for each other and we're going to be
looking out for each other or are we going to be looking out for ourselves and mate I'll tell you
what 40 minutes goes a long way when you're you're in a tough battle ruthless environment you never
know you can't control the radio ratings you've got to do your best and hope for the best but I'll
tell you what it was a very very informative 40 minutes from Gus Gould and the and the Gus Gould
leaves you in that position where you will remember it for years like I remember that speech he made
that's probably I was running whiz in those days we're talking probably talking 20 years ago
and I just couldn't believe it and you come from really good broadcasting entertainment
journalistic credentials okay and we just covered off that off that's how you grew up
so when did Ben Fordham recognize that he's going to be involved in that industry at what point in
your life I used to go into radio stations with dad on weekends because he had a wine segment I
remember yeah his other great love was wine yeah
and so he would do this segment on a weekend which was basically a bit of a scam because
if you were doing wine segments on radio then people would send you wine
you know because you'd have to review it so but we'd accompany dad into that and I'd look around
a little bit and that was my first taste of a radio station I remember lots of people swearing
and telling rude jokes and I'm 13 14 I thought this looks I can't believe this is a work
place and then I did a week of work
experience with Alan Jones when he when I was 15 and during that week of work experience I
stepped into the sports department and that's where you find the real characters so Ray Hadley
was running the sports department and Andrew Voss was working in there and Andrew Moore and a whole
heap of other people and then someone let slip during that that week when I was ducking my head
in there they said oh there's a job on Sundays on the rugby league coverage on the continuous call
team so I then contacted the boss of 2UE John Brennan and I said look I want to know what you
want to do it and he said mate how old are you and I said I'm 16 I'm coming up to 16 and he said
oh mate we can't have someone who's 16 in there like you know on a weekend or I said well look
why don't I do it for free and then if it doesn't work out there's no no harm done no no issue I'll
just do it for free to start what was the job it was answering phones buying lunches and listening
to the opposition so they want me to listen to the other radio stations covering the rugby league
and to know that we were crossing around the ground and we were doing it for free and I said
doing score updates more often any breaking news make sure we had it first so it was basically
cross-referencing keeping across what was going on hustling mate and I didn't have a I didn't have
a license I was 16 so when you'd have to go and buy everyone's lunch I remember getting back with
the lunch and they go what took you so long I was like well I had to walk to St Leonard's they go
you walked why didn't you drive I'm like but I don't I don't have a license I'm 16 that's when
that's when 2GB was on the other side of the hospital Pacific Highway here at Greenwich so
and then I worked there all through year 11 and year 12 every Sunday so mate there was so many
my mates remember 18th and 21st and all these things they go we still remember
you trying to explain to us why you couldn't be at a piss up somewhere and I said but I'm working
you know and and they ended up paying me I got paid $60 for every Sunday for every shift I think
I did 10 hours and I got $60 six bucks an hour or something but it was a
and it was a foot in the door and it taught me to have a look around see how everyone else was doing
it work out who did things well and who did things better than others and basically pinch a little bit
from everyone and then when I was finishing up school they'd offered me a job when I was in year
12 working on the Commonwealth Games two weeks straight but I went to mum and dad and I said
look I've got two weeks on the Commonwealth Games it's a big opportunity for me and they went mate
you're at school you're not getting two weeks off school to go and work in race and I said well I'm
so I went back to the bosses and said look I've got to go to school and they were like oh you're
still at school I said yeah I'm still at school and then one of them said well you need to come
and work here full-time when you finish so I did a cadetship in the newsroom I didn't want to do
news because I was a sports guy but dad said to me you'll never look back because news has just
got so much to it like you know it gave me a love of politics I ended up being a political
correspondent in Canberra at about 20 years of age and John Howard was the prime minister
and you know watching the way politics works and you know and you realize the big sports stories
end up becoming news stories anyway you know when there's a performance enhancing drug scandal or
salary cap or whatever the sports guy ends up losing that story and the news guys end up doing
it right so dad said you'll never look back and he was right I just discovered with news
that there was so much to it and also because dad had kind of worked in sport a lot I thought
that this is maybe my way of stepping away a little bit from there for you
old and making my own mark in the in the news business were you always that strategic because
that's pretty strategic for a young kid to take six bucks an hour to to put himself out when all
the other kids all your mates in the year 11 and 12 were going out and doing having their fun and
stuff like that absolutely strategy are you a strategic person yeah absolutely but you know
what it is it comes from fear of failure and nothing else because that's what drives your
strategy big time as in when I was at school I knew I wasn't the smartest kid in class
academically academically I knew I wasn't going to be you're probably not interested well I was
kind of I was interested but I was more interested in what I was doing on weekends at the radio
station so I knew I thought hang on uh latin and algebra and all this shit that I'm doing here at
school I knew this is going no this is not going to be my future so strategically I thought I'm not
going to play footy in the first 15 I'm not going to play cricket in the first 11 I'm not going to
be ducks of the school I'm not going to be a footballer I'm not going to be a footballer
I'm not going to be and I've got this thing that I'm quite interested in radio so I think
the fear of failure drove me to go well you better lock this thing down and put some energy into it
because you know you're interested in it and you've already got a bit of a head start on
everyone else so while other kids were going off to uni to learn how to be a journalist
I was covering stories you know like the first story I ever covered as a journo were the kids
who got 100 in the HSC right I was in their same year I was along with them I was in their same year
from 100 so but I thought to myself these five kids have trotted out for all of us today and
they're those five kids are probably going to go on to be big time players in in this country and
in the world they're the smartest kids out of my year but they're not being paid to be here today
I am you know I was there as a 18 year old cadet reporter and all I knew was all right well at least
I'm out there and having a go these guys are all going to go to uni for the next however many years
uni was never going to be for me I come from a family of workers we like we like getting out
there and having a go and earning a buck Ben where's that canniness come from though like um
that's sort of pretty mature would you consider yourself a mature kid yeah but you know I'll say
talk about the fear thing again right um no but you might have the fear but you you're able to
deal with the fear by being very canny so I'm doing my fear I'm gonna I'm gonna be strategic
doesn't it make sense okay no it totally makes sense doesn't it make sense that if you feel that
you're good at it you do more of it
like I used to give the example of people who are particularly good at something in the media
business and they'd go you know I just keep getting sent to do the same thing and I'd go
that's because you're really good at it like if we go back to Andrew Johns like if Andrew Johns
throws a killer pass does he get sick of passing it and putting people into a gap and people scoring
tries no he gets rewarded for it yeah right if you're good at something you keep tapping it
so I kept tapping this thing because I thought I think I'm pretty good at this and I've got a
good at it and I've got a good at it and I've got a good at it and I've got a good at it and I've got
understanding of it I've hung around radio stations a lot as a kid so I may as well run in
this door and then when I ran into it early on I started kicking a few goals you know I won some
awards I was sent to Canberra to be a political correspondent I started getting recognized what
I was doing so I thought well do more keep going you know because this is working well for me
but that fear of failure I'll give you another example when I'd saved $15,000 after working
for a couple of years I gave the 15 grand to my mate Matt Hayson who's a real estate agent
and because again I thought okay I've gone okay here the first few years
right everything's going well or whatever but fear of failure what if everything f's up
I need I need I need something I need a roof over my head and like looking forward now 2024 with
what's going on and how hard it is to get somewhere to live I knew that I was going to get
somewhere I knew then at age 19 20 this is good now everything's going well but it could f up and
I could f it up I need a roof over my head I gave $15,000 to Matt Hayson and I said back then that
got you 150 grand and I said you find something for me and he goes what what do you want where
is I said it's up to you you're the real estate guy you find it I'll buy it about three or four
months passed and he called me one day he goes I found it it was a it's not far from here and I
still have it I still have it I still have it I still have it I still have it I still have it
I still own it it was a little studio in Potts Point for $139,000 and I bought it and it was the
start of my real estate kind of journey because that's the other thing I love I love property
but again that was me thinking hey it's it's all good today and I'm going well but you just never
know what's around the corner so strategically I was thinking grab something now just in case
the party ends tomorrow and you and you think that that's obviously you've done a bit of
reflection but these days but do you think that's come from your fear of
things up I can say yeah you don't want to say it because yeah but on my show it's the fear of
fucking things up totally yeah so that's amazing so fear fear is a driver for you I think so
I think I in terms of business success or on everything in everything in everything I think
I looked at all of these people you know who I grew up around through my parents they're all
top of their game so there's a little bit of that that plays in your mind as well where you're going
okay mum and dad are really good at what they do because everyone
tells me how good they are from John Laws to Mark Taylor to Mark Burris and all these famous people
prime ministers premiers yeah and they're all saying how wonderful John and Veronica Fordham
are and and I know how well Mark Burris is doing and I know how well Ricky Stewart's doing I know
how well the Johns boys are doing so I there's a little bit of intimidation as well in going
all right well am I going to be good too because I want that
I want to be able to kick goals and do well and then hopefully be able to provide for my family
and the nice holidays and I still say to my kids now you know I wake up at three o'clock in the
morning to do a breakfast radio show and if I get any hint from my kids at all about you know that
they're taking the piss a little bit which they don't but you know sometimes they might be oh can
I have this or can I have that you know I've got no qualms about letting them know hey listen you
know we're swimming in how do we get this swimming pool and they'll go because you and mum wake up
at three o'clock in the morning yeah my wife Jodie Spears until recently was the early morning news
reader on channel seven before sunrise she's now had to let that go after working at seven for 15
years because she's studying law but for a long time there the alarm went off at 10 minutes past
three every morning and Jodie and Ben are out of bed and off to work so I let the kids know when
you're in the swimming pool the only thing that they're going to do is they're going to go to the
swimming pool the only reason you're in this pool is because your mum and dad get out of bed and move
their ass at 10 past three in the morning when it's still dark and everyone's still asleep did
Jack do that with you guys or Veronica did what say the same thing to you guys did you and yes
yeah they would let us know they would let us know when we're on a holiday that this was not normal
they would absolutely let us know just so you know this is not normal for kids to go to Disneyland
we went to Disneyland as kids
you know and they would absolutely dad more so than mum would just have that pause moment and say
it's not normal for kids to be going to Disneyland right the reason you're going to Disneyland
is because of the sacrifices your mum and dad have made they both quit well-paying jobs to
set up their own business turned a garage into an office you know lots of sacrifices lots of hard
work and they would let us know that because of that you're okay with that you're okay with that
you're able to enjoy some of these things but they were also very good at kicking us in the ass when
we needed it and you know some of those lessons flow through to me where our kids do pocket money
jobs you know I'll sometimes who wants a pocket money job you know it's two bucks five bucks
ten bucks if they're lucky depending on what it is it's usually something I don't want to do you know
so um Freddy very proudly let me know recently Freddy's your older boy yeah Freddy's nine
he very proudly let me know that he's
He's getting close to $500 that he's made right over time.
That's from getting money at birthdays from nanny and, you know,
whatever and some pocket money jobs and whatever.
But, mate, there was also a time where we'd bought him some new sneakers
and he wore the new sneakers down to his mate's place down the end
of the road, Jack and Will.
He'd taken the sneakers off and he left them out on the curb while they were
all playing for a few hours and he came back.
But it was rubbish chuck out day.
So if you're leaving something on the curb,
people think that you're chucking them out.
So he came back and said they're gone.
And I said, mate, what do you mean?
Anyway, I sent him back down there searching, can't find them.
I said, mate, you better go and get your piggy bank.
And Jodie kind of looked at me and went, what are you doing here?
I said, mate, I reckon they're worth $50.
I took $50 out of my son's piggy bank to show him that those shoes were not free.
So when I told that to a few people, they were like, you arsehole.
But Freddie got it.
He totally got it.
I thought he'd be blubbering and whatever.
He went, all right, I've still got $450.
But that was my way of saying, hey, mate, nothing's for free.
And mum and dad were big on that with me.
I know you had a lot to do with the Packer family.
I know you have over the years.
There's a famous story as well.
I think Kerry left a tennis racket somewhere.
He was sent back to Geelong Grammar.
Where do you reckon I got the $50 idea from?
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
From reading that book and thinking, hang on, I'm not Packer money kind of rich.
If it's good enough for a billionaire.
You want them to know.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
Do you think to yourself, though, that you might be over-disciplined in that regard?
We were certainly disciplined.
Because today most families, the kids rule the house.
You're doing the opposite way.
Oh, yeah, not in our house.
You're going the opposite way.
And Jodie's happy with that?
Yeah, Jodie's happy with that.
There was a discussion early on about physical punishment.
And what's the deal there?
Because I've always said to Jodie, I said, I'll always reserve the right to smack our kids.
Jodie goes, I don't think we need to be smacking our kids.
I said, oh, no, I don't intend to.
I reserve the right.
But I reserve the right to.
And I've let them know that over the years.
I've said, you know that some kids get smacks.
Do you guys know about smacks?
Because it happens.
And I reserve the right to if I feel I need to.
I haven't had to.
And one day I tapped Freddie on the chest.
Like I'm talking, tapped him where he was doing the wrong thing.
And I went, mate, what are you doing?
And he gave me this look.
I've never forgotten it.
He looked at me like, what was that?
Why are you doing that to me?
And I was like, mate, I'm just letting you know.
You're going to burn yourself.
But that tap on the chest, oh, mate, it hit me, the way he looked at me.
But I bet you it had an impact on him, though.
That he stopped doing what you asked him to stop doing.
And I think we've got an arrangement.
We've got an arrangement.
They know that I'm a tough operator.
There's lots of love in our household, lots of love,
but there's lots of discipline too.
And no one's taking the piss.
I don't care how old you are.
No one's taking the piss and there's no free rides.
But look, we got the tough discipline from Dad.
Did you get a whack?
We had the shit belted out of us.
Yeah, no, Dad had a belt.
He'd take the belt off and we'd cop the belt.
Mum had the wooden spoon.
But when you really knew you were getting it was when Dad,
the car phone was the worst frigging invention in the world
because for me and my little brother it gave Dad the ability to ring us
from the car and let us know what was happening when he got home.
Yeah, I'm on my way home.
Wait till I get home.
He'd say, you just wait.
And so for the next 25 minutes you'd be, mate,
we'd put on extra pairs of undies.
We'd put on three pairs.
We'd also, he had a white belt.
I think it might have been the fashion at the time.
It was like a white ostentatious bloody leather belt
and it was thicker than the rest.
So we would go and hide it and put on three pairs of undies.
And then probably 50% of the time we didn't even get a smack.
But we got the shit scared out of us.
But other times we did.
There were smacks, there were hits, there were whatever.
And I always presumed I'd be the same.
But you're not bruised?
We needed it, Mark.
Nick and I needed it.
It probably had a different impact on Sarah, my sister.
Different person, different gender, you know.
She's younger too.
And she probably, she's older.
She probably didn't cop as much of the physical.
She wouldn't have copped as much of the physical smacks.
Certainly not into the teenage years like we did.
Dad wouldn't have done that to Sarah.
But, you know, the discipline, the tough discipline,
Nick and I probably, we feel like we needed it and it's helped us.
Were you a bit wild?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we, Nick got caught for everything.
I never got caught for anything.
But we were always looking for fun.
That was Dad's personality too.
Dad used to tell us a million stories about smoking at school
and getting busted with cigarettes and wagging school
and all these crazy things.
Because he's a real character.
Pranks and whatever they used to pull.
And then we'd do it and then Dad would get surprised, you know,
that we were doing it.
But, you know what, he was great too.
I had a couple of close calls at school.
I had a couple of calls at school where I was close to getting punted
and Dad came into school and went into bat for me
and, boy, he was good.
Oh, mate, he was so good.
Like I remember I walked out of the headmaster's office
and he was a priest and my mum said,
I think you're a little bit too aggressive to my dad.
And I said, I thought you were phenomenal.
Jeez, you were good.
It sounds like a scene out of The Scent of a Woman.
Remember Dustin Hoffman?
Al Pacino, that's right.
It was fantastic.
Yeah, there's that great last scene.
Yeah, he was blind.
There's that great last scene where he turns up at the school.
That's right, exactly.
And, yeah, so there are a couple of close calls here
but I want the same for my kids.
I don't want my kids to be boring.
I want them to have as much fun as they can.
They're not going to get in great trouble with me for playing up.
If they're lying about it, different story.
And they're getting better at that where they kind of realise,
all right, there's an easy way out here, you just tell the truth, you know.
But sometimes that can be hard to get to.
You sound like you've got like a perfect relationship with Jodie and the kids.
I don't know about that.
Well, nothing's perfect.
Nothing's perfect but like in terms of most of the structure of the whole thing,
it's going good, it's going good.
You sound like you've got a really good family life, a really good family life.
You've definitely got a great brother, great sister, great mum.
Your dad's, of course, passed away.
Your family's got a really good reputation.
Then there's Ben Fordham, though, who has to build his own position
You know, you were doing all the things early days, you know,
we went to Canberra to be a political correspondent and all that sort of stuff.
But there's Ben who comes along to Channel 9, back to Channel 9,
many years later, probably in his late 30s, I guess,
and you started doing fill-ins for Carl and then you did the Today Show for a while,
then you did Ninja.
Yeah, Australian Ninja Warrior.
Australian Ninja Warrior.
You weren't really doing what you're doing now.
But it looked like someone from above was preparing you for all these things.
During that period, though, did you ever feel unstable?
Did you ever feel like, I want my own gig?
You were happy just...
Because you're sort of like a fill-in dude to me.
What happened is I was offered two great jobs at the same time.
Drive time, host on 2GB.
That's in the afternoon.
And being the sports guy on the Today Show on Channel 9 alongside Carl and Lisa and Georgie
and Richard Wilkins.
Two at the same time.
One in the morning, one in the afternoon.
I said, I'll do both.
Yeah, which worked.
And I did it for four years.
I said to Jodie, I'll only do it for a year.
I did it for four years and I loved it.
Did you do the...
So the drive time, you did that only for four years?
I did it for longer.
Yeah, I thought so, yeah.
So I was waking up in the morning doing three and a half hours of Today Show and then three
hours of drive time in the afternoon.
A lot of broadcasting.
But I thought, no, I take every opportunity as it comes.
And if there was someone above who was...
Kind of looking out for me or...
There probably are a few of those people.
David Gingell is one of them.
David Gingell, who when he was running Channel 9, was a great friend of mine and also a great
But he also knew that I loved radio.
So at one stage I said, mate...
He was also a great fan of yours.
But I said to Gingell, look, I want to go and do this.
And that means I'm going to leave the Today Show.
And he goes, well, let's not make any drastic decisions.
I said, no, I just want to focus full time on the...
He'd eventually...
He'd try and talk me out of it.
But then he'd eventually...
He'd come on board and he'd support me.
You know, so Tom Malone is another one who's my boss at Nine Radio.
He used to be the boss at the Today Show.
He was my boss at the Today Show.
Bit of a lesson there as well.
Dad used to always say, be good to work experience kids because one day one of them will become
Tommy was my work experience kid.
He was one of them.
And he's now been my boss twice.
Once at the Today Show, once at Nine Radio.
So thankfully I was good to him when he was a work experience kid.
Yeah, Ginge kind of was very good to me in allowing me to chase my dream in radio.
And, you know, I got my own show doing the drive time thing.
And then all of a sudden Tom said to me one day, mate, Alan Jones is retiring and we need
you to step into breakfast.
And I said, no, I think six times.
But Tom then basically he showed me a chart that showed me the success of my show in the
afternoon on drive and the revenue that came to it.
And he said, and it was successful.
And he said, we need that in at the start of the day.
And in the end I thought, I trust Tom.
I trust my brother.
I trust my sister.
They all think it's a good idea.
I think it's a shit idea.
Maybe they're right and maybe I'm wrong.
And it went against everything in my DNA because I trust my instinct, Mark.
But on this one I went, well, hang on a moment.
And this was a lesson for me as well.
Why is my instinct any...
More accurate than theirs?
There's five of them.
There's one of me.
Five of them think it's a good idea.
One thinks it's a bad idea.
So I thought, you know what?
I'm going to throw caution to the wind.
I'm going to go with them.
So I said, okay, I'll do it.
And then on the Sunday before my first show, mom and my brother and my sister came around
for breakfast and I started crying my eyes out over breakfast.
Like bawling my eyes out in front of my children, in front of my wife, in front of my mom.
And they said, you okay?
And I said, no, I'm not okay.
Because I didn't want to fucking do it.
And I said I didn't want to do it.
And now I'm doing this thing.
And I was so pissed off about it.
Because I was like, I should have trusted myself and not caved into everyone else.
And now I'm starting this thing and I...
Yeah, you're leaving an award-winning show and going into a show that may or may not make it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'll tell you.
I mentioned David Ginge, all right?
Now, I'm going to make these numbers up because I'm not good at remembering ratings, radio
ratings, numbers and whatever.
But say Alan Jones finished on a 16, 16% share, which is pretty bloody good.
Ginge was texting me the day before and he goes, good luck, mate.
And I said, mate, hoping for the best but expecting, you know, bracing for the worst.
I thought if I end up with an eight, you know, Alan was on 16, if I halve his audience and
end up on an eight.
I'll be able to deal with that.
And then I'll climb from there.
He goes, mate, I know you better than that.
And he had like laughing face emojis.
I said, mate, I'm not joking.
He goes, mate, I know you too well.
I said, mate, I'm serious.
I was bracing for that.
And I think the first ratings came out and we rated 17.
We went up, I think, or either 16, 17.
We stayed the same.
I still remember it was close.
And I was like, and then we went up.
We certainly ended up going up above that 16.
And now we've kind of stayed and no one left.
In terms of advertisers?
More advertisers came because Alan had some advertising problems because of some statements
that he'd made that got him in trouble.
But now every ratings day or most ratings day, I get a message from Ginge saying, mate,
how's that eight going?
One of the great communicators.
You know, why am I risking all of this?
And occasionally I ring Tom, my boss, and I go, you know what, mate?
You made a good call.
Because I reckon I'm actually pretty good at this.
So how long have you been doing the morning show?
So the morning show, I mean, I listen to it.
I mean, I'm unfortunately or fortunately I'm in the 5.30 club.
And in fact, I'm in the 4.30 club.
But your 5.30 club starts at 5.30 club.
And I actually listen to, who's on before you now?
It used to be Luke.
Who's on before you now?
Mike Jeffries is on now.
It used to be Luke.
Yeah, it used to be.
But Mike Jeffries is on there.
You're up nice and early.
I know I am, yeah.
So as soon as I get in my car, I turn.
I have the radio on in my house 24 hours a day.
And then I get in the car in the morning and the first thing I do is turn the radio on
because I just like the idea of company.
And, you know, like you're one of the first people I hear talking.
It was just comforting to me to know that there's someone there I know.
I feel like you're talking to me.
That's how it feels to me anyway.
Anyway, I do want to talk about some of the issues that you talk about and some of your
But just on that, I'm the same.
Like when I go to sleep now, I've become addicted.
I need a voice in my ear.
Yeah, I need the noise.
Yeah, I need something.
And so I listen to podcasts, but they can't be podcasts that are too interesting.
Them I need to listen to in daylight hours because they keep me awake.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I listen to podcasts that I've already heard before.
And it's that comforting voice, a conversation I'm already familiar with.
So it's a powerful thing.
It's a great gift that I have to be in people's homes, in people's beds.
Because some people will text me and go, I'm laying here next to my missus.
Or they're not well.
Or I'm in hospital.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we're in a daily fight against Kyle and Jackie O in Sydney.
And usually on the ratings day, it's either me winning or them winning.
And I'm number one at the moment, which means chances are by the time this podcast comes
out, they'll be number one.
And we've just accepted that.
Kyle and Jackie O accept that.
And we exchange nice messages amongst each other.
But I reckon I work harder.
And this will get under Kyle's skin.
I reckon the reason why I work harder.
So I'm going to, Kyle has got this extraordinary personality, right?
And he's captivating, he's controversial, he's everything.
But guess what, mate?
So hard work, you can catch up to people around the edges.
Did you have to catch up?
Did you have to catch up to him before?
So in other words-
I started at number one.
I stayed at number one for about a year.
Then they knocked me off.
Then I came straight back up in the next survey.
And then ever since, it's a seesaw.
Number one, number two.
There's lots of radio shows out there who are never going to be number one.
And say in the Sydney market where I work, some of these people are my friends who they
might be number three, number four, they still do great shows.
So I'm very lucky.
I started on the number one radio station in town.
You know, I didn't build this thing.
It's not like you.
You've built this thing yourself, right?
I turned up at a radio station that's got heaps of listeners.
Can we talk about that?
Then let's just talk about, it's not, I mean, it's the Ben Fordham show, got it.
But it's not just Ben Fordham.
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Grainger, for the ones who get it done.
Let's talk about all the broad shoulders upon which your success relies.
So in your team...
Just explain to us how you go about building your show for tomorrow morning, for argument's sake.
Like, what actually happens?
Well, first of all, I have got the best team of producers,
and I have consistently had the best team of producers in the country.
What does the team of producers mean?
Well, it means, first of all, young, talented people who help me put a show together.
But the way that I've done that is, I've created a work experience.
I've created a work experience program when I started at 2GB, because they didn't have one.
Because I said, where are you going to find the superstars of tomorrow if you don't have a program?
So we got rid of a couch and put a desk in there with a phone and a computer.
And basically, anyone who wants to come and do one day of work experience on my radio show,
they can come and do it one day.
If they show promise, if we are interested in them, they can come back another day.
And then from there, it builds where we start giving them some paid work.
And then they go into a system of people...
People who we know are there for when we need them.
It's like a pathways...
It's a discovery system for you.
It's a discovery system, right?
Because otherwise, what I noticed is that when I was working at Channel 9,
I was working at A Current Affair for years and years and years.
And the boss there, David Hurley, who I love,
Hurls used to walk out and go, ah, Boris has quit.
Does anyone know anyone?
And there'd be a thousand CVs sitting on his desk.
But he didn't have time to go through them.
I thought, I need a system.
So I've got these brilliant producers.
And, you know, I've met some of them on street corners.
I've met one of them that was a talkback caller.
He was a talkback caller who he turned into a producer.
You never know where you're going to find them.
And then we have a WhatsApp group.
And I've got a rule which is if it's not in the WhatsApp group, it didn't happen.
So it's like if you spot something, if you see something, you put it in the WhatsApp group.
And then every night, I then go through that WhatsApp group
and I work out what all the options are and we put a show together.
And then sometimes you wake up the next morning and the Queen's died overnight.
God rest her soul.
And so you throw out the entire show and you start again.
On the morning the Queen died, I think we managed to track down four prime ministers.
So we had Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd, and another.
I need to work out who the other one was.
So, you know, it's about chasing.
A lot of it is dynamic.
So you go to our 5.30.
By the way, give us an example of what happened.
So on that occasion, so the night before you probably got your show set,
you got your talent set on your WhatsApp group and, you know, you've gone,
well, so-and-so would go and chase this person out and chase it.
And you've started lining your talent up because you've got to fill up the hours
for three and a half hours.
What time do you get to work that day?
I woke up at normal time, 3.10.
And a young bloke, Spiro Christopoulos, who works with me.
One of your producers?
He was doing the night shift for us.
I also created a night role where someone works at night so that if stuff happens at
night, they're across it.
He put a note in the WhatsApp group saying all of the presenters on the BBC are wearing
That's a sign that the media is aware that the Queen may have passed or is about to pass.
So that was all I knew.
All the BBC presenters are wearing black.
So when you wake up at three, whatever time in the morning, is that the first thing you
That's the first thing.
That's the first thing I see, yeah.
You pick up your phone, look at what's up.
Pick up my phone, I walk downstairs, have a look at what's going on, send a few messages
back, and then jump in the shower.
So that morning I was like, okay, dump everything, we've got to change everything.
And then we need to, we need people live out of London.
I've just thought who the fourth prime minister was.
It's our current one, Albo.
So it was, yeah, Albo, ScoMo, Abbott, Rudd, getting them on and sharing their reflections
So what would happen though?
So you would be, would Spiro ring them?
I'd be, on most of those guys, I'm texting them.
So I text them and say, sorry if you're just hearing this for the first time, but the Queen's
I'd like to be able to talk to you about it on radio once you've gathered your thoughts
So my team will also be chasing.
Like, I'll give you another example of breaking news and the way it works.
There was a girl in Western Australia called Cleo who went missing.
She was taken out of a tent.
And I remember saying to my guys, listen, I want an update on this every day.
And they'd say, there's no update today.
I'm like, I don't care.
I still want to know.
Like this little girl, she's missing on the other side of the country.
I want to know where she is.
And then on about day 18, my producer at the time, or executive producer at the time, wandered
into the studio and just gave me a piece of paper.
So I was in the middle of an interview about something else.
Say I'm talking to Mark Burris about interest rates, and they just come in and hand me a
piece of paper, and it's got West Australian Police, and it's a statement about Cleo Smith.
So I wrapped up the interview, said, Mark, thanks for your time.
It's 25 past seven.
Now, I've got this, and I just started reading it.
Now, I don't know whether this is going to say that we've found her, we've discovered
that something terrible has happened to her.
I haven't pre-read it.
And then I'm reading it, and it gets to the past.
It's part of the officers knocked on the, went into the room, and asked the young lady,
what's your name?
And she didn't answer, and they said, what's your name, sweetheart?
And she said, my name is Cleo.
And that was written in this thing.
And you go, holy moly.
You know, like, I just started bawling my eyes out live on air, because I've got little
girls at home, you know?
It was one of those moments of, and then the whole show changes.
Then I'm like, right, let's get Mick Fuller on.
The New South Wales Police Commissioner, right?
Mick, what with the WA, because I thought, I'm not going to get the bloke in WA, he's
in the middle of this.
Mick says, actually, I've contacted, I've spoken to him.
He's been bawling his eyes out.
You know, okay, we've got some new information.
The WA Police Commissioner has been bawling his eyes out.
Our mate, Mick Fuller's told us.
He's jumped on the line.
You know, so you just respond, you react, and you get as many different people and insights
onto a story like that.
And if you feel like.
You're there when it's all unfolding.
And this goes back to the companionship thing.
So many people wrote to me and said, mate, I couldn't get out of the car.
I pull up at work.
Twenty five past seven.
I've got to be in there at 7.30.
I want to listen to the rest of the story.
Because you've got to listen to it.
I want to listen to the rest of the story.
And radio is great like that.
Radio is resilient like that.
That I can find something out at 6.26 and four seconds.
And I'm saying it at five seconds.
As long as it takes for you to open your mouth and you're saying it.
The reason I moved more into radio, because I'm a bit ADD, and the reason I favoured radio
more than TV, is in TV, you'd have to go, all right, we need to get the camera crew
to go to Carnarvon.
Oh, we've got it there.
Have we got the link truck?
How do we let it.
You know, there's a lot of that stuff involved in radio, mate.
There's something special like this.
When you're talking through that then, Ben, like one of the things that's really, really
important in your armoury is that you know people.
And in fact, I remember when I went to your dad's funeral, like when we went back to your
house, your dad's house, your mum's house, who were prime ministers, premiers, all sorts
of people there, like police commissioners, et cetera.
And it seems as though that, a bit like your dad, there's a personable side of Ben Fordham
that's really important in terms of Ben Fordham's success or the show's success.
Because as you just said, you've got to be able to ring the prime minister, you've got
to be able to ring Mick Fordham, the commissioner for police.
How do you go about building these relationships?
Like how does, how do you do it?
Is it because you're-
But is it because you're Ben Fordham or is-
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mate, if I wasn't hosting the Tushy Beer Breakfast Show, they're not taking my calls, half of
Mick Fuller, I'll give you an example.
He's a mate of mine.
We've become friends, right?
But also it's been tricky for me, Mark, because my boss pulled me aside about a year into
the breakfast show and he said, mate, I think you're getting too close to people.
I said, what do you mean?
He goes, I think you're too close to Gladys Berejiklian.
I said, well, I love Gladys.
He goes, yeah, well, that's fine.
And I said, and I think she was completely stitched up by the Independent Commission
Against Corruption.
And I think it's a disgrace that she lost her job.
And he goes, well, that's fine.
He goes, but just be careful because you may need to give him a whack next week.
So, and I said, yeah, I get that.
I understand that.
So I've become a bit better at that in just having some polite barriers.
In place as well, where we can be friendly, but also you understand that the next moment
Well, that's what I want to talk to you about.
Give you a, and I'll, you know, like it happened with me with Albo, for example.
I get along really well with Albo.
I think Albo is one of the best blokes in Australian politics of all time.
I think he's a terrific human being.
And I remember during the last election, it was him against ScoMo.
I get along really well with ScoMo too, but I remember saying to a few people, look, if
you saw, here's the issue for ScoMo.
If you saw Albo and ScoMo on either sides of the pub and you could have a beer with
one of them, people are going to be going to Albo, right?
So election over.
I'm not saying we all decide our vote based on that, but ScoMo was on the nose.
Albo seems like the kind of bloke everyone can get along with.
But when the voice to parliament was being proposed last year, I knew early on that this
was going to be a dog's breakfast and it was going to blow up in everyone's face.
I've got lots of mates who are Indigenous.
And I thought this is going to be a catastrophe for them.
So I went and saw Albo.
I went and saw him privately.
I poured my heart out to him about it.
And I said, you need to change approach.
You need to stop what you're doing.
You need to switch it.
We can still get a voice.
You can legislate.
He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And he didn't want to listen to me.
I understand it was his baby and he was on a certain path.
He'd made promises.
But I was, you know, we probably, we had two big confrontational interviews.
Last year over it, where I really, because I knew, mate, my crystal ball was so crystal
clear on the voice.
I was telling everyone from day one, from 2022, I was saying, this thing is going to
be so problematic.
And then when Albo couldn't explain how it was going to work and whatever, I thought,
oh, no, no, no, it's just going to be a disaster.
So, but hopefully if you've got enough respect there with people, I've had a few conversations
with Albo this year off air.
After he got engaged and whatever, we had a conversation and you move on, you know,
so the people, the professionals move on and they understand that you've got a job
The sooks throw the toys out of the cot and they think it's all about them.
It's like, no, no, no, it's not all about you.
I've been giving grief lately to the New South Wales Police Commissioner, Karen Webb, for
a whole range of reasons.
Karen thinks that I'm picking on her.
It's all about her.
I think she even thinks too that because I'm.
I'm mates with Mick Fuller.
Oh, you're mates with Mick Fuller, so you're picking on me.
I gave you a fresh slate and a clean start and gave you a lot of encouragement.
And the first time you screwed things up, I let him go through to the keeper because
I thought, oh, hang on, she's new to the job.
But then when she hid the use of a taser on a 95-year-old great-grandmother in a nursing
home, I'm sorry, but all bets are off.
That's when I say, no, no, hang on a moment.
You have not been truthful here.
Now, they've then got two options in Ben Fordham's world.
Cop it and say, okay, lesson learned.
We should have been more transparent about the use of the taser.
I've learned a lesson for next time.
Or you run and hide and you pretend like you can cover it up, get through it.
And Karen chose that path.
And so, you know, again, I've still, even though we've been at loggerheads, I'll still
send her a cheeky message here and there.
I do not hold grudges.
I just don't have the attention span to hold a grudge.
I don't really care what you've done or what you might have done.
I'm willing to move on.
But you also want out of politicians.
You want people to recognise.
Like, I remember Mick Fuller as police commissioner.
One of the first things I did is I said, listen, this Lindt Cafe siege, we had the siege at
the Lindt Cafe and police didn't handle it as best as they could.
And they realised that.
I said, you're going to have to own up to that straight away.
So he came on the radio.
One of the first things he said, Ben, we should have done it better.
So it's like, that's what we want.
We want some accountability.
We know that people stuff things up.
We stuff stuff up all the time.
You just want someone who acknowledges it.
Do you think that that's when it comes to, say, the two different police commissioners
And as you know, I'm a great mate at Mick's.
And do you think it's just because he just got better now than, say, Karen and or Karen
might be not as well advised?
Because Mick had Grunter.
As a right-handed man, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you think it's...
No, like, Grant Williams is a very, very smart bloke, but no, it's Mick Fuller.
Yeah, so Mick had more nows.
Yeah, it's in your DNA.
It's in your DNA.
So when it comes to someone's response to you, how do you deal with the fact that someone
like Mick had much more better DNA or better nows when it comes to how to deal with media,
media outlets like you, compared to, say, Karen Webb?
Yeah, because Karen's a nice person.
But she just doesn't deal with media as well.
Yeah, I'll tell you what it is.
You've got to pick up the phone.
You've got to pick up the phone, yeah.
You've got to pick up the phone and have some difficult conversations with people.
And my complaint about Karen is I've said, look, she avoids difficult conversations.
She's been avoiding them with me.
She's been avoiding them with all sorts of people.
Now, the first difficult conversation in the example I gave about the taser is that when
she was sitting in her office and when someone said...
So they had the word taser.
They were in a press release.
And then someone said, let's take the word taser out.
She should have said straight away, bullshit, put it back in.
Like, this is going to cause us so much more grief if we try and cover this thing up, right?
It's bad enough that a 95-year-old great-grandmother was tasered in a nursing home.
Let's not make it worse by us trying to hide it.
So you've got to have uncomfortable conversations and say to people, like instinct would have
said there and then in that room, no way in the world.
It's like, I don't want it to come back on me.
I don't want to be part of a cover-up or an alleged cover-up.
I think instinct does play a big role.
But your instinct, Ben, has been largely knitted together over a long period of time.
Through your dad and your mum.
Being exposed to these things.
Let's just say...
And I'm not here to make excuses for Karen Webb, but I just want to explore this with
But let's say Karen was a police officer and a good police officer, but never had that
same DNA grafted onto her.
And has relied heavily on her advisors who may be not that good.
And that's a distinct disadvantage.
What you also need is you need two people to ring.
We always need two people to ring.
Now, I've drafted emails before that I was about to send.
And I've called one of the two people I call at a time like this.
And sometimes they change.
And I'll say, I'm about to send this email.
And the person on the other end of the phone will say, do not send that email.
And I go, because I'm firing up at the time.
Someone's done the wrong thing by me.
I feel like I've missed out on an opportunity.
Unfairly dealt with.
Unfairly dealt with.
I'm going to write this.
And they go, don't send that email.
And then you don't.
And you wake up the next day and go, thank fucking Christ.
So someone who comes from this environment always relies on sort of testing the idea
Yeah, you need people.
At least two people.
To say like someone like Karen, right?
She should have at least two people who aren't in her office.
I'd love to know who they are.
Yeah, who you can ring.
We all have them in our lives.
She might not have them.
She might not have them.
But you need people you can ring.
Now, equally, I've had some of the people who help me out who've called me and said,
I'm about to do this.
And I go, no, no, no, no.
Sometimes you need someone to talk you back.
Other times, OK, I'll give you another example.
Last year, I was accused of being drunk on radio.
I'd been at lunch and I got a hot news tip on something.
So I went on Chris O'Keefe's Drive Time show on 2GB and I broke the story.
Tom Malone rang me and said, have you been to lunch?
I said, yeah, how do you know?
He goes, mate, I could tell.
I said, I'm fine.
I might be a bit tipsy, but I'm fine.
I'm not someone who has a few drinks and starts saying crazy stuff.
I'm like, you know, I still keep my wits about me.
I don't start fights and start calling.
I don't start fights and start calling.
I don't start fights and start calling.
I don't start people Nazis.
You know what I mean?
But you could hear it in my voice.
Anyway, anyway, a few days go past and we get an email from the Sunday Telegraph.
Was Ben Fordham intoxicated when he appeared on Chris O'Keefe's show?
Tom and I looked at each other and we went, hmm, what are we going to do here?
And he said, I think we tell the truth.
And I said, so do I.
that was his instinct i was like that's mine too now sometimes you got how'd it go yeah it worked
well how did it go did she write about it i call her i said look this is what it is in future tom's
told me in future if i get a hot news tip to pass it along the other host and they can break it
if i've been out to lunch so lesson learned you know but the lesson was tell the truth
in the first instinct it saves you a lot of grief in the end but also if you've got people around
you who can tell you when you're about to do something stupid not to do it or when you're
maybe sometimes shying away from a difficult decision and you really should be taking it
and that's where i'm lucky that i've got those people around me i probably maybe i learned that
from my mum and dad as well but it's an instinct we should all have those people around us you
don't have to listen to them every time either sometimes i'll call and get advice from someone
and i go nah i'm doing it anyway but i'll tell you what they've probably saved me from i have
in my life too one of his your brother yeah but
another one's david ginjo david ginjo so ginjo and i talk all the time yeah like every week for
sure sometimes often i mean and i i i will say to ginjo what do you think mate like especially
if someone's having a crack at me and you suppose which happens sometimes yeah and uh you know
sometimes i'll fire up because i can get pretty fiery and and i feel as though like you just do
a carry on and bring the guy dude up and give him what i think tell him what i think david says to
me just calm down like just just relax will you yeah 60 fucking
stop carrying on yeah who gives a shit how many fights do you want to start yeah well i he said
you've started enough in your past so just just relax and don't worry about it and it always
disappears it does it blows over but but he also but you're right i know i never really thought
about that way but i've always had someone around me yeah who i can pass the idea by and they don't
need to be the same people all the time no no sometimes you know jody i'm frequently i jody i
lean on all the time even things to do with content for the radio show but you're lucky she's
in there and she's in there and she's in there and she's in there and she's in there and she's
in the media yeah she knows it you're back to front you know and if i'm about to really rip
someone's head off on radio and i'm i'm writing something in advance what i'm doing i'll send it
to jody and she'll go that that i'll just pull that one line out or you know so it's great to
have those people around but on the idea of calling people and calling on people can i
reveal something about you you can i called you once i remember where we've got a mutual
friend who was in trouble and was off the rails in their personal life with booze and all sorts of
other stuff that i felt was going to be really destructive to his future and he wasn't listening
to me i thought who does he listen to boris so i called you and said i need your help here
and i'll never forget what you did then and i know that you would do this kind of stuff all
the time when someone rings you but i said i need you
talking about uncomfortable conversations i remember it i need you to have an uncomfortable
conversation with this mate of yours because he's not listening to me and he's doing things that you
may not be aware of but if he doesn't tidy up his act he's going to blow himself up now you know how
all that bloke's doing now brilliantly he's on top of the world yep um he's got his private life
stuff under control and managed to kick the booze completely and now and i look at him now
and he is killing it
and a totally different person totally different person full of accountability and and but did it
on his own too with some encouragement but did it on his own but that was a phone call when i still
remember where i was yeah there's a park around the corner from my house and i was down there
doing a i think it was during covid so i was doing outdoor training and i so i remember where i was
where i thought oh this would be cool because i know you but i i don't know you as well as other
people know you how do you ring someone like mark boris and say hey listen your friend
is off the rails and you may not know it but he is completely off the rails
and i need you to step in and help you might have gone mate it's not my place but thank god you said
all right i'll have a word to him and which i did yeah and uh and i'm i'm really proud of how he's
like could take control of his life but how lucky are we to have people
no totally that you can ring but some people don't have those people and that's that's sort
of my point in relation to and you're right on that i guess i guess so i get i think i am in
to the commissioner i want to talk to you about a mutual friend of ours but also you know a person
who has to be accountable for a lot of things his name's chris chris minns the premier yeah
i reckon he's a good bloke yeah irrespective of whether a liberal labor whatever i just he's a
good person i like he's a decent person i think he's a very good politician too and he's a good
politician but sometimes you give him a tickle up uh now yeah and you you make him accountable
and i i can't remember what it was more recently but he was very
uncomfortable on the phone to you i can't remember what it might have been about housing
the housing crisis i can't really remember what it was and uh and i thought to myself my god
ben really knows how to rescue the rescue his position for these individuals like
because at the end of the conversation you say well thanks very much premier and uh he's and
he just said okay no worries so he's one of those guys who basically says well i'm gonna aim up
when it's good and i'm gonna cop it's caught when it's bad do you know who i learned that from
the how to end an interview with a nice ending i learned that from carl stefanovic
watching him on the today show so he would do this thing if an interview was boring
then carl would find a way of making it interesting he just realized this is so boring
and he'd then change the topic or he'd just throw this kind of you know wild
spanner into the works but the other thing i noticed him do he had a really
uncomfortable interview with someone one morning really uncomfortable and at the end of it he said
something like now listen um christmas coming up you know next week what are you hoping that
santa's going to bring you or something you know and it gave the politician a chance to
to have a bit of a laugh and have a bit of a smile he says okay thanks a lot pm see you later
and i thought oh something there so he's just gutted him for 10 minutes but then leave people
with a nice goodbye and that's what we do in life you might have an uncomfortable conversation with
someone but hopefully at the end of it you go all right mate well listen we'll agree to
disagree and you kind of slap each other on the back and you move on but here's a mark of how good
minns is i did an interview with him about he's got all these housing changes that he's announcing
and they're they're within they're needed because we've got a housing shortage but on some of the
detail i'm not sure he's thought of all of it through so i gave him an example i said in your
street where you live this is the one this interview i heard so what i did was i went okay
they changed the rules yeah what if the housing changes were applied to his street yeah in other
you can turn your one dwelling into five and the neighbors are two on either side can do the same
so five homes now becomes 25 homes so anyway he's sitting there going oh holy moly so and he
realizes he stuffed up about an hour after the interview my phone rings chris minns so i said
hello and he goes mate this is not a phone call of complaint i'm not ringing to have a go at you
i said what do you mean he goes when i and he gave me he tried to defend
the changes and i don't know and i said i think you're wrong anyway he gave some statistic he
said i've checked it you were right i was wrong i stuffed up not a lot of people do that so what
does chris minns do he goes all right there's no point like when gingell was saying he had no point
whinging about what someone's written you about you in the paper it's already written just already
written so he goes mate i stuffed up i got it wrong anyway lesson learned for me he goes i'm
kicking myself because i spent a lot of time on the phone with him and he goes i'm kicking myself
because i spent a lot of time on the phone with him and he goes i stuffed up i got it wrong
all sunday getting ready for that interview um so that's the the mark of a in in public life
you can't afford to hold a grudge you've just got to wipe your hands of it and move on and some of
the best politicians i've reminded them before i go you're still talking to me you weren't talking
to me he goes oh mate he goes i've moved on from that i can't remember what it was but what is it
because i mean they they're like teflon like a lot of them nothing really sticks i mean there's
there's a certain sort of personality trait within a politician a good politician yeah they can cop
but it's sort of just they don't take it too seriously.
Well, yeah, I mean, once you realise that this is the job, you know,
I think, again, if someone writes something about me in the newspaper
and it's not very flattering, and usually it's your friends
who bring it up with you, oh, jeez, did you?
I don't want to hear about it.
But I say to them, well, hang on, I'm paid to give my opinion,
they're paid to give theirs.
I mean, what kind of hypocrite would I be to go, oh,
I'm going to contact their boss who might be someone I know
and complain about what's been written.
But what, I'm going to go on radio tomorrow morning
and say whatever the F I want to say?
Like I'm allowed to say whatever I want on radio.
It's unbelievable.
It's a real gift that I've been given.
So, mate, I'm not going to go complaining when someone has a go at me
or write something that I don't know.
Can I ask you, do you really care anyway?
If someone writes something.
Depends who's saying it.
Do I care what random people who I don't know?
No way in the world.
I gave up on that a long time ago.
It's like the comments under the stories, you know,
on the news websites.
And then you can leave your comment under the story.
I think I stopped reading those comments in 2007.
There was a guy called Lockie Harris who was working for Kevin Rudd.
Yeah, I remember Lockie.
Lockie said to me.
He ran the campaign.
And we were going for a walk one day and I said, yeah,
but did you read the comments under the story?
And he goes, you don't read the comments, do you?
He goes, never read the comments, ever.
He goes, mate, it's like reading graffiti that someone's left
on a toilet wall.
Some random person who's never going to walk up to you in public.
Now, if someone walked up to me, because I'm always out and about,
if I walked out of here and someone said, hey, mate, listen,
can I have a talk to you?
And this does happen.
That thing you did and the way you're handling that thing
with the police commissioner or Chris Minns or whatever,
I'll listen to that 100%.
But, yeah, I mean, random feedback.
Random feedback, negative publicity.
Mate, you've got to take the good with the bad.
I don't get a lot of bad publicity, but when you get it, you know,
that's part of the business.
So it's important not to be precious then.
Yeah, you can't afford to be.
And I think, once again, your parents have probably equipped you
not to be precious because one of the things that comes out
of parents being precious to their kids is the kids become precious.
And what you're doing with your kids, you're making sure your kid's
not going to be that type of person because you've got to read them
the truth and you've got to tell them the truth and you've got to let them know
where the pressure is.
That's where the pool came from.
That's where the pool came from.
You've got to know how you got to Disneyland.
Well, I'll give you one on that.
Freddie, who's nine, had his first bullying experience last year
and he didn't tell us about it.
Another kid in our street told his mum and Annabelle told Jodie
and Jodie told me and said, apparently something happened
to Freddie today.
So we sat Freddie down and said, mate, what happened?
And he told us his story about what happened.
And it's a kid who kind of does this to everyone,
but he just decided on this day.
It was Freddie's turn, you know, harassing him in the playground
and grabbing their hat and stealing their, you know,
all that kind of stuff.
So I thought, right, this is our first challenge here.
So I said, Freddie, there's several ways we can handle this.
One is we can go and talk to the school about it.
Two is we can go and talk to his parents about it.
Three is you can handle it.
He said, I said, but I won't let you do it on your own.
I'll sit down with you tonight and give you advice on how to go
and talk to this kid tomorrow.
But do you want to have a go at handling it yourself?
And he said, I want to do that.
And I was so proud of him.
And this is about not being too precious.
If you're too precious, you go, I'm going to march up to the school gate.
And I'm like, no.
So anyway, that night I trained Freddie to deliver a 30-second speech
to this kid, word for word.
I even taught him about changing his tone.
I said, no, mate, you've got to change your tone.
You're going to walk up to him nice and friendly and say, hey, mate,
you've got a minute.
You've got to tell you something.
And then when he gets over there one-on-one,
you're going to change your tone on him.
He said, what do you mean?
I said, well, you know what I'm saying to you guys?
Come on, come inside.
And you don't move.
And then I eventually go, get inside now.
That's a change in tone.
So when you take him aside, you go, hey, listen,
someone saw what happened in the playground yesterday.
They told my mum and dad about it.
So my dad has told me to tell you three things.
Never steal my stuff.
Chase me if I don't want to be chased.
If you do all those three things, we can still be mates.
Anyway, so he missed a word here and there.
And I said, no, do it again.
I reckon we practised it 30 times while I'm preparing for my radio show too.
Anyway, Jodie and I go to pick up Freddie the next day.
And I said, look, he probably didn't do it.
You know, that's a bit of an intimidating thing for a kid in year four to do.
But we knew the kid, right, the kid involved.
So anyway, as we're looking for Freddie at the school pick-up,
And I said g'day to him and he put his head down straight away.
And I said, oh, he did it.
So then I said to Freddie, what did he say?
He just said, oh, yeah, what?
I wasn't going to do it again.
So then I said to Freddie, all right, he's now going to forget.
And this is the strategy.
So every time he forgets, just hold up the three fingers.
So two days later, Freddie goes, oh, I forgot.
I just held up the three fingers and he stopped.
I said, right, and now you've got to do it when he's doing it to others.
So Freddie will now walk up to this kid when he sees him doing it
to another kid and go like that.
And this kid said, that was for you.
And he goes, no, my dad says it's for everyone.
So it's like I was really proud of Freddie and going, mate,
I can be the dad who turns up at the school gate or go,
imagine me going and knocking on some dad's door or some mum and then,
you know what I mean, because of my job and whatever,
if it's like, and if you turn yourself into a dickhead and you start,
your son did this and my son, they're in your frigging year four.
Let them sort it out.
And Freddie sorted it out.
You're talking like, the way you're talking to me today is sort of like,
I listen to you on the radio.
What's interesting, and I've never really had a long conversation
with you like this, but one of the things I get out of this, Ben,
is that you're really intense.
I know, but you're an intense dude.
I'm like, a boss of mine, Peter Meakin, who's now at Channel 10,
and he apparently, he never said it to my face,
but he used to refer to me as the Scientologist behind the scenes.
He goes, oh, he's a bloody Scientologist.
And I said, what?
You're not a Scientologist.
He said, no, I'm not.
But he goes, the intensity.
You know, and that's, I suppose, I don't know.
I mean, I'm here in this environment of if I'm sitting around having a drink
and I'm probably not as intense, but I'm, yeah, I think these things through.
And I listen to, see, I listen to your podcast and I listen to all these
I listen to all the podcasts and other interviews and I'm stealing nuggets
from so many people around the place that I go, oh, I like that.
I'm going to use that.
So I suppose in an environment like this, I'm also trying to drop a few of my own
because you just never know whether someone else might think, all right,
well, I'm going to use that when I land myself in that situation.
And talking about intense then, you recently interviewed the Spanian.
Which we've had him on our show too, but you got him more, isn't it?
But yours, your interview went viral.
It went viral, it went mental.
It's a bit out there for 2GB audience, I would have thought.
No one would have heard of the Spanian, most of your audience.
The younger ones.
You'd be surprised.
The younger ones.
But you're right.
It's not a natural fit for 2GB.
So what was that experience like?
That was actually, again, coming back to good producers and good team members,
it was a young guy called Michael Ponticello who did the HSC two years ago
who works with us.
He said he's mad on the Spanian.
And he goes, we should.
We should interview him.
We should interview him.
I said, all right, well, let's line it up, you know, see if he says yes.
I didn't think he'd say yes.
He came into 2GB as polite as a choir boy, said hello to everyone,
no bad language, no mucking around, sat down, did the interview,
because when he's on YouTube it's all F and F and F and lad, lad, lad, lad,
and I thought that might be a bit hard for the 2GB audience.
You need a translator, right, and someone on the beep.
That, different audience, different way of communicating.
I think he is a very intelligent bloke.
I think the fact that he goes into a lot of these areas where people aren't used
to visitors, they're not used to people coming in there and talking to them
and hearing their stories about disadvantage and about their culture
and their life, I think there's something really to be said for him.
And he admits I'm not a perfect person, I've been to jail.
I was very impressed by him, deeply impressed by him.
And here's the funny thing.
I've had all these people.
Listeners, I'm 75.
We've been watching his videos for years.
No, I follow him, I watch his stuff.
You know, like I got 15 different messages from people who are 65 plus who said,
hey, mate, we've been following The Spanion for years through YouTube.
So you don't know who your audience is, you know what I mean,
because you might think, oh, well, they're conservative, they're older,
they're whatever, but, you know, I've got nine-year-olds who listen
and I've got 99-year-olds who listen.
I've got 99-year-olds who listen.
I've got 99-year-olds who listen.
I've got 99-year-olds who listen.
And some of them might have been to jail,
others might have been the wardens at the jail.
So you can fall into the mistake of pigeonholing your audience
and thinking you know who they are.
But the greatest test of it, though, Mark, is if this guy's interesting,
I mean, let's face it, how many boring people are out there?
If this guy's that interesting, put him on the radio
and he'll make the rest work.
Like you don't go out of your way to find boring people
to put on your podcast.
You might have made an exception.
You might have made an exception for me today,
but you put interesting people on and turn the microphone on.
Well, I put people on who I'm interested in.
And for me it's a bit selfish in that one of the greatest gifts
that I have been given to me is that I get to sit and talk to people
like you and the Spaniards and I find out things about life
that I would never, ever have an opportunity to find out.
You've been spending your whole life on radio and television
and just generally media.
And I can get in one hour a whole lot of great stuff from you
and they're all gems for me.
And I could, as long as my ass points to the ground,
I would never get the experience you've got in what you've done.
And I'm the same as a Spaniard.
I'll never get his experience.
And you're the sort of same because you get to talk to these people,
Prime Ministers, Premiers, Spaniards, also, you know,
Switzerland, whatever.
All these people you talk to every single day of your life.
How much gratitude do you feel?
Because I know I feel a lot of gratitude.
How much gratitude do you feel, Ben Fordham,
that you have this opportunity to talk to really interesting people?
People cover really interesting topics your whole life
and get paid for it.
Well, when the gratitude shines through,
and this is going to sound like me trying to be a bit soft
and a bit, you know, Hallmark card, soppy movie kind of thing.
But when I'm really grateful is when we put a story on the radio
and people respond to it.
People, I'll give you an example.
I'm off this week.
I've got a week's holiday this week.
So someone wrote to me and said, look, there's this little kid called Max.
Needs to get to Singapore.
Treatment can't be done in Australia.
They sent it to me as a direct message on Instagram.
It was a girl called Betsy Burnett who was actually a contestant
on Ninja Warrior.
She goes, hey, Ben, this is a friend of a friend.
I said, I'm on holidays, but my team will look after it.
I put in the WhatsApp group.
Team, I know I'm away, but have a look how cute Max is.
Can we please help raise the $150,000?
On my way here this morning, Mark Levy's filling in for me.
$135,000, $140,000, $142,000, $148,000, $151,000.
That's what I get a buzz out of.
I've got this opportunity to be able to find people who need help
and there's other people who want to help,
but they just don't quite know how to find each other.
So that's what gives me a real buzz to be able to connect the two.
The fact that I'm able to meet interesting people and get paid
and do all the other stuff along the way is a bonus.
You're now going to get hit up by 1,000 people, by the way,
after the podcast because they're all going to come and say,
Ben, can you help me?
But I get hit up too.
It can be a tough one though, that, because sometimes there's times
in which you don't have the energy to do it or you just think,
I've hit my audience up too much.
I've tried to raise too much money.
How do you work out what the cadence of that is?
There is a bit of an algorithm to that, if you like.
You've really got to look at it and go, are people going to care about it?
Here's my other thing that I do.
I don't ask anyone to donate money to anything that I haven't donated to.
So I made a decision early on that I thought, if I'm saying go
to the GoFundMe page, then I want to make sure that when people get
to that GoFundMe page that they can see Ben Fordham's donated $100.
Because it's like, I don't, I will never, ever say,
can you please go and donate to this if I haven't donated to it?
It's costly from my point of view because you're doing it a lot,
but it's a way of saying, all right, I've got to put my money
where my mouth is.
And, yeah, I suppose you've got to find, you've got to find your mark
and make sure that they're the right people.
But I don't know.
I mean, people are so keen to help others.
There's just this, but you know what?
They want the money to go to the right people in the right place.
So what they trust me with.
Yeah, you're curating for them.
That means that we've checked the people out because sometimes, mate,
people aren't telling you the truth.
We've checked the people out.
We've verified what they're telling us.
We've made sure that this is the best course of action,
that this kid needs to go to Singapore.
You know, it's not mum and dad wanting to go to Singapore for a holiday.
You know what I mean?
Because there are some people out there who try and trick you
or try and do all that.
So, yeah, that's a good word.
People who need help and we've picked the ones that we think.
And then there are others we help off air.
But I've had to limit how much help I give to charities
because there was a time there where I'd be emceeing
two charity events per week.
Alan Jones used to do that.
Right, I do 100 of them a year.
Now I say to people if it's during the daytime, I'm there.
Now, mind you, this Saturday night I'm doing something
for the Little Legs Foundation because I met this family
and I said to them, oh, I can't do nighttime gigs anymore
because of the breakfast radio and the mum, Sue Ellen,
who's as charming as all hell, she goes, except for us.
And I said, yeah, except for you.
Or Ricky Stewart.
Yeah, or Ricky or whatever.
Because he's foundation.
Yeah, but I try and say, look, I'll still do it.
But I'm conscious of limiting my time and also like at one stage
I said to the kids during the bushfires I had to go out
on a Saturday night to go and host something for two firefighters
who died and the kids are giving me grief for going.
Where are you going?
You know, because we're in the swimming pool and everything's great
and I've got to go.
I've got to go and do this thing.
You know, and they're giving you the guilt trip.
So I said, oh, you want to know why?
And I told them because there were two firefighters going out there
and they were out there trying to protect everyone's homes
and a tree fell over and crushed them and killed them
and they've got little kids like you and those little kids
don't have a dad anymore and they've asked me to go
and help them out and raise some money for those kids.
So do you want me to go and do it?
They go, yeah, yeah, go and do it.
And then they open up their piggy banks and gave me money,
So some of their 450s, they've got reduced.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's like, you know, so I do a lot of that stuff but, yes,
I'm also conscious that if you do it all the time
and if you don't leave any time for yourself and your wife
and your children, I've got the greatest wife in the world,
I'm married well, one of the best decisions I ever made
in my life was deciding, righto, this is the woman I want
to try and marry and throwing everything at it
and thankfully she said yes and we're, you know,
10 years plus and going pretty strong.
But I've got to keep her, you know,
not that she's planning on going anywhere but I did have
a conversation early on where I said, I'll just say, you know,
our family doesn't really do divorce.
She goes, what do you mean?
I said, we don't do divorce.
So like when I say I'm getting married to you,
I'm getting married to you.
I'm staying married to you.
Yeah, no matter what happens, no matter what we do,
I'm never, ever going to walk away.
I'm never going to walk away from this.
Just so you know, in our family, I know it's a bit unconventional
but when we marry, we get married forever.
So but you can't take that for granted and that's why I've got
to make sure that I'm-
You've got to work on it.
I'm looking after Jodie and now she's going to become a lawyer
which means when you get in trouble or I get in trouble,
we get a discount on the lawyer.
Well, you'd better not divorce her because she's going to,
especially if she becomes a family lawyer.
And I have one more question for you and I think-
I've loved having this chat by the way.
I think it's an important question to-
This is usually my interviews where now I really jam them
with the, now that I've got you all warmed up.
I just want to know how do you, someone like you,
well, how do you balance the amount of power you have?
And you have a lot of power because you've got the radio
and you've got an audience, you've got the mic
and you've got credibility and you've got reputation
and you're a winner.
How do you balance that power position out
in your own personal life?
So how do you let yourself not get carried away
with your power position or do you just don't think about it?
Jeez, that's a good question.
I think other people do that for you because naturally
your kids are going to do it every day of the week.
They ground you, you know.
You might think you're a big deal on the radio between 5.30 and 9.
But outside of those hours at home, you're just dad, you know,
and you don't have any power beyond that.
And also I think your mates are very good at that as well,
at keeping you in check and, you know, we're lucky in Australia
that we've got this humour where the more you take the piss out of someone,
the closer you are as friends.
So that's a great way.
It means that you are now-
You're naturally going to cop more shit than others are.
When you go to lunch with people and if you've been in the media that week
or you've had a bit of a high-profile week and there's been a this and that
and whatever, you know that when I turn up, I'm going to be copping it, you know.
And they'll all claim that whoever I was having a go at is severely misunderstood
and they all feel sorry for that person, you know what I mean,
and they'll say you're this and you're – so, you know,
that probably helps as well that once the microphone's off, you know,
and you step out of that, then –
I think you get reality checks left, right and centre,
but you probably do need to be careful to not take yourself too seriously.
Because some jocks, journos –
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it has been their demise.
Yeah, and it has.
And also, as I said earlier, once the show's over, the show's over.
Don't kid yourself into thinking that without 2GB Breakfast
that Ben Fordham has got some kind of degree of influence around Sydney.
Mate, like you do, you're different.
You're Mark Burris.
And you've built yourself away from brands.
Yes, you've been associated with many brands,
but you turn that microphone off and you take it away from people
and I think a lot of people have realised this.
Oh, hang on a moment.
You don't have the same level of influence
or swing the same level of power as you did last week.
But does Ben Fordham identify himself as Ben Fordham,
the dad, the brother, the son, the mate, grandson perhaps?
Or do you sometimes get a little bit confused
that I'm Ben Fordham from The Ben Fordham Show?
No, no, no, no, no, not at all.
This is another – my boss has told me not to talk about this, Tom.
Tom, I hope you're listening.
Which is why I'll talk about it, obviously.
But I said in an interview recently that I'm going to retire at 50.
Tom said, oh, mate, can you please not say that again in future interviews?
So I'm going to retire at 50.
But I say that too because –
and I don't know whether I will or I won't,
but I've asked my accountant.
Yeah, I just said, for example, what would it look like if –
well, mate, you've got the kids going into high school, you've got –
I said, yeah, I know, but I just want to know.
Like I've worked hard, I've saved hard, I've invested well.
If I had to sell a few things or whatever,
the reason I'm exploring that as an option is because
I don't want my identity to be tied to this role.
I don't want to get my satisfaction in life through that job
because that's unhealthy.
And I think that's where you're getting to as well.
Now, if I derive all of my satisfaction and self-respect
and pleasure and buzz out of that job,
well, I'm setting myself up for a pretty disastrous life after radio.
So I want to do the opposite.
I want to explore the option of cutting myself loose from it
in three years' time.
Or at least have the ability to do it.
And to go, all right, what if I just said I'm done for now
and then I just want to see what else is out there?
So I'm doing that as a way to go, don't be one of those guys
who is so addicted to that job, that radio, that presence,
whatever you call it, that they can't let go of it.
That's not to say I don't respect people who,
John Laws is still on radio.
Good example, yeah.
And I have lunch with Lawsy twice a year.
And he can't think of anything else.
He can't think of anything else than being on radio every day.
I can think of other things.
I've got a property development business that I'm really passionate about
that I have with a few mates.
We can talk about that some other day.
I love the food and hospitality kind of business.
I'm fascinated with politics.
So I'm kind of like, well, you only get one shot.
It's not when the kids have said to me, oh, do you reckon you...
Is it true that there's an afterlife?
Like, I don't think so.
I think when you're dead, you're dead.
And do you think...
And that's another one where Jodie goes,
should you be saying that to the kids?
And I go, bloody oath, I should.
Because you've got one shot.
You've got one opportunity.
Please don't save it for your second life.
I believe in Kerry Packer's version of events when he died and he said,
son, I had a look on the other side and there was nothing there.
Like, I'm a religious person.
I'm a spiritual person.
And if there's another life, great.
But I'm also thinking, all right, when I hit 50,
I just wouldn't mind hitting pause potentially
and just seeing what else is out there.
So is this driven by your...
how we first started off the conversation,
would it be seen as a failure of yours?
No, that next part will just be freedom.
It's like I feel like I've done my thing.
I've proven myself in the industry that I chose to.
And then I just like...
A little bit like David Gingell, right, he got out of the TV business,
the king of TV, ran Channel 9, very successful bloke.
And then he got out and then he was like, oh, kind of like beer.
What about starting Bolta?
Have a look at it.
I like the idea of being free to think, I don't know,
I'm keen to know what my kids are going to get into.
Am I going to want to get involved in something that they're doing?
Or I might just get to the end and go, no, I want to go around again.
But I want to have that freedom and I want to feel like, no,
I've done my bit in the first half of my life.
I might start my own podcast and, you know, try and destroy yours.
Let's do it together.
Instead of me trying to destroy Kyle and Jackie O every day,
I might think, righto, what's Boris doing?
What are his numbers?
How are we going to catch him?
Well, mate, by the time you do that, if that's in three years' time,
I'll be like 70-something, so I don't know where I'll be.
Mate, you've done so well with this podcast and with your team.
You've got a great team of people.
Well, you know, success is always built from the broad shoulders of others,
as far as I'm concerned.
Mate, I just turn up, have the chat, and I do all the interesting stuff.
They do all the hard work.
Where's your notes, by the way?
I don't have a note.
There's notes here.
You didn't even look at them once.
I don't do notes.
Mate, that was fantastic.
Thank you so much, mate.
I really appreciate it, mate.
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