Carole Whitelock and Peter Goers take later chances to start own radio shows on Adelaide ABC's 5AN

5AN's evening show host Peter Goers, and former afternoon show presenter Carole Whitelock (right) with another prominent Adelaide female radio presenter, from 5DN, Jann Springett.
mage at right courtesy Warwick Kemp

Carole Whitelock and theatre identity Peter Goers belatedly became prominently linked with Adelaide ABC radio station 5AN long after being associated from 1983 with Goers reviewing films for Whitelock’s programmes. From that, Goers picked up commercial contracts, including at 5DN and 10 years at the Austereo Radio Network.

Whitelock had to wait until a block of six years before her retirement in 2011 to build a major personal profile on a high-rating afternoon show. Starting her career with the ABC as the host of the regional mornings program, Whitelock moved on to afternoons, evenings, news reading and television regional news then weekends, before settling into afternoons.

Aside from this shuffling of duties (even including playing classical music on 5CL before it became Radio National, produced interstate, in the 1980s), announcers were often off air for long periods when 5AN broadcast Test cricket and sessions of federal parliament. Besides under-used staff, personalised programmes were difficult to establish.

After a break in Turkey from theatre directing and critiques,  Goers returned to Adelaide in 1998 as the Sunday Mail’s regular columnistand a return to local radio on Monday nights on commercial station 5AA  He was joined by Rex Jory and Pamela Francis to produce The Good, the Bad and the Ugly weekly panel that expanded briefly to twice weekly with Alex Ward.

In 2003, on the day Goers was invited to audition for a 5AN spot, he was asked to fill in for Carole Whitelock, who was ill. This led to hosting 5AN’s evening session over the 2003/2004 summer and then hosting the evening show permanently.

The show settled on a magazine format, with Goers interviewing local, national and international celebrities and academics in addition to a regular call-back segment and a quiz.  At the end of every show, Goers signs off with “Goodnight, Mrs Calabash, wherever you are” – borrowed from Jimmy Durtante.

In 2013, Goers was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for “service to the community as a radio broadcaster”.