Mr Gary O'Callaghan MBE - Our Patron Mr Gary O'Callaghan is one of the longest running broadcasters in Sydney's history, starting his career at 2SM in 1951 before moving to 2UE in 1956, where he topped the ratings for three decades. At one stage he and his feathered side-kick Sammy Sparrow commanded the largest audience ever achieved in Sydney radio with an astonishing 46 per cent of listeners tuning in to the cheerful mix of information and entertainment. Radio personality Gary O'Callaghan, who ruled Sydney's breakfast radio roost for three decades, was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at the 2004 Australian Commercial Radio Awards. Joan Warner, chief executive officer of industry body Commercial Radio Australia, paid tribute to Mr O'Callaghan's many achievements.

"Gary O'Callaghan achieved 78 survey wins for his weekday breakfast show at a time when there were only four surveys a year," said Ms Warner. "With another 81 successful surveys for his weekend program, Gary's total of 159 survey wins makes him the most successful broadcaster in Australia's radio history. No one else has equalled that record.

"Gary was a pioneer of the breakfast radio format, delivering listeners a mix of chat, news and information they had never had before - live-on-the-spot news coverage, the status of ferries, trains and buses, and the start of traffic reports as we know them today. Nothing happened in Sydney that Gary didn't know about."

During his career, Mr O'Callaghan covered three Royal tours and the Presidential tour of Lyndon B Johnson. One of his most memorable moments was his broadcast of the Petrov Affair, which focused on the defection of Russian KGB agents in 1954. He was the only radio man on the scene when Evdokia Petrov, the wife of Russian diplomat Vladimir Petrov, was hustled through Mascot Airport by Soviet government officers. He ran alongside with his tape recorder, and his dramatic broadcasts became known as the Petrov Tapes and were aired in the US, Canada and Europe.

Mr O'Callaghan was the first broadcaster in Australia to use aircraft for beach patrols and traffic. He was also the first to use a helicopter for news when he covered a murder story at Bigga, near Goulburn. He urged 2UE management to loan the chopper to police for the search of bushland, which later enabled the Police Commissioner to persuade Parliament to fund and start the Police Air Wing.

Mr O'Callaghan was presented with an MBE in 1979 for services to Radio and the Community and also awarded the NSW Police Commissioner's Commendation, one of only two civilians to be given the honour. He is now semi-retired but can still be heard each Sunday morning on NSW mid north coast station 2MC FM, where he comperes a two-hour show with his son Nicholas.

The Hall of Fame recipient is nominated by industry colleagues and is decided by a high level judging committee. Previous inductees include radio stalwarts John Laws, Bob Rogers and Paul Thompson, CEO of DMG Radio Australia.