Well-known Sydney media personality Philip Clark says his appointment as the replacement for breakfast presenter Ross Solly at 666 ABC Canberra ''just made a lot of sense to me''. ''I know Canberra well and I like it and I've lived there,'' he said.
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Clark, 57, has signed a one-year contract to present the shift next year while Solly moves to Bangkok with his family as partner Samantha Hawley takes up a posting as the ABC's south-east Asia correspondent.
Clark said his contract might be extended, depending on when Solly decided to return and if he was happy in the role in Canberra.
''With these adventures, we start them and see how we go,'' he said.
Clark spent 13 years living in the national capital, from 1974 to 1987, while he studied arts/law at the Australian National University and worked, including at the Law School and as a private secretary to Labor senator John Button extending across the first and second Hawke governments.
That link to Canberra has continued with his daughters Olivia, 22, and Georgia, 19, now both studying arts/law at the ANU. His wife Diana Slade, a linguistics professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, is on a posting to Hong Kong.
Clark worked for a private law firm in Sydney before starting his media career 25 years ago when he was approached to join The Sydney Morning Herald, reporting on politics and editing the original, much-loved Stay in Touch column.
He has worked across ABC Radio including as the breakfast presenter for 702 and presenter of the Evenings show. He also worked for 2GB in breakfast and drive. He presented the national quiz show Flashback on ABC-TV.
He has more recently been teaching media law at UTS and doing freelance work for ABC Radio.
Clark is expected, like Solly, to bring a strong news agenda but also a sense of humour to the breakfast shift.
''I'm definitely keen to get into the issues of the day but at the same time it's not going to be News Radio,'' he said. ''I've always been keen to make a warm connection with people.''
He was approached to join 666 by local manager Andrea Ho. ''It came completely out of the blue. I was actually lying on the couch at home and the phone call came from Andrea,'' he said.
Launceston-born Clark says he has obviously seen Canberra develop over the years. ''It's much bigger. I think the feel of the economy has changed. When I was first there it was very much regarded as a government town but that's changed a lot,'' he said.
And he has no qualms about returning to a pre-dawn wake-up.
''The early morning hours have always suited me,'' he said. ''Breakfast is when the audience is at its most critical and most loyal and it's a great time of day for setting agendas and letting people know what's going on. It's the most dynamic radio shift.''
