Leon Byner's 22 years of morning pursuit of authority/bureaucrats for Adelaide radio 5AA listeners ends in 2022
Morning show presenter on Adelaide radio station 5AA for 22 years, Leon Byner made frequent trips to Los Angeles, making A-list friends such as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right: Matthew Pantelis was Byner's successor on the morning show.
Leon Byner, last of the old guard at Adelaide radio station 5AA, stepped down in 2022 as host of the AM-band talkback station’s morning programme for 22 years. He was to be replaced by another of the station’s long-time allrounders Matthew Pantelis.
Byner's 60-year nation-wide career started at 14 when he was announcer on the public address system for the Alfred Hospital fete at Melbourne’s St Kilda. He was encouraged as having a voice for radio by John Bell, later to start Australia’s famous Bell Shakespeare Company.
Byner also had some experience in dramatic arts at St Martin’s Theatre before getting his first job in radio at 17 in Shepparton in Victoria. That mid-1960s era of do-everything training on country radio taught Byner valuable skills.
Byner came to Adelaide in the late 1960s and worked for 5AD, mainly on midnight to dawn, before getting more opportunities at 5KA. Even bigger opportunity came when Byner moved to Sydney radio in the early 1970s and he was asked to be fill-in replacement for John Laws on his No.1 2UW show.
Back in Adelaide at 5AA under station manager David Whiteman and Peter Brennan as programme director, was given the mornings chair in 2000 – for the next 22 years. A hallmark of Byner’s mornings programme was his pursuit of authority and bureaucracy on behalf of listeners, with an influence on government policy.
Byner had authority pursing him in 2004 when he was suspended by 5AA for failing to disclose personal commercial deals he had with organisations and individuals, including Adelaide lord mayor Michael Harbison.
Byner had a ongoing affection for Los Angeles from his first trip there in the 1970s. He did stints on American radio, once posing in character as a doctor and telling a woman who called in to discuss her kleptomania to “take two ashtrays and call me in the morning”. He also had many interviews with A listers, forging bonds with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Brooks among them.
Matthew Pantelis, replacing Byner on the morning slot, had worked for 5AA for 26 years. He was its news director for 15 years and worked across every timeslot, including the dawn shift, before being appointed evening show presenter in 2020. He became a a ratings winner, landing the No.1 spot in that timeslot for all 15 surveys.
In 2019, Pantelis won the Brian White award for radio journalism, one of the most prestigious awards in commercial radio Another of the station’s stalwarts for 22 years, Leith Forrest took over theevenings session.
