Ernie Sigley's larrikin style raises 'Adelaide Tonight' to institutional viewing levels for NWS Channel 9 from 1964-74
Ernie Sigley took Adelaide Tonight, started on NWS Channel 9 in 1959, to new heights. A promotion advertisement for the show in its earlier days has Adelaide singers Mary Kitson and Kamahl among guests, with comedian Hal Turner (later Bobo the Clown). Lionel Williams is compere, assisted by Kevin Crease and Leona Gay, with the Channel 9 Ballet and Channel Orchestra under Walter Lund.
Adelaide Tonight variety show, with its own ballet and orchestra, was entrenched in the city’s viewing by the mid 1960s, being presented four nights a week from Studio 1 at 9.30pm soon after first South Australian television station, NWS9, went on air in 1959.
Lionel Williams, with Kevin Crease, were popular original comperes but Ernie Sigley, from 1964, took the programme to a new level of popularity. He won the South Australian Logie award for best male from that year to 1974 when he left the show. Adelaide Tonight was the South Australian Logie winner from 1966 to 1974.
Sigley brought a larrikin little-battler style to the show with an openness about his private life, including marriage breakups.
The show’s popularity was a catalyst for other Adelaide talent such as Anne Wills, Ian Fairweather, Roger Cardwell and Glenys O’Brien (later Sigley’s third wife), to become household names as presenters.
Sigley's career began in 1952 as a turntable operator on 3DB Melbourne breakfast radio and made his TV debut as host of Teenage Mailbag on Melbourne’s HSV7 in 1957. Shortly after, he went to London, gaining some work experience at BBC followed by three tears with Radio Luxembourg under the name “Ernie Williams”. Returning to Australia, Sigley was host of an early version of Wheel of Fortune before taking over Adelaide Tonight .
Sigley moved to Melbourne in 1974 to host of the national Nine Network variety show, The Ernie Sigley Show. He won the TV Week gold Logie for most popular personality on Australian television in 1975. Sigley’s program was abruptly axed in 1976 after an off-air outburst by Sigley, directed at station owner Kerry Packer and producer Peter Faiman.
Sigley moved to ATV0, hosted the early evening variety show Ernie and, in 1979, Saturday Night Live on HSV7 with Mary Hardy. He was later the original host of the Australian version of the popular game show Wheel of Fortune (1981-84). After a break from television, Sigley returned in 1989 with Denise Drysdale hosting GTV9’s morning program In Melbourne Today. (In 1974, he had recorded the popular “Hey Paula” duo with Drysdale.)
Sigley was host of the afternoon program on Melbourne’s 3AW from 1996 until his retirement in 2008.