{"id":816281,"date":"2026-07-22T09:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/816281\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:57:17","slug":"rip-brian-lehman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/816281\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Brian Lehman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-5821.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Australian radio industry is today mourning another huge loss, with the death of Perth-based broadcaster Brian Lehman, who passed away in hospital at the weekend, aged 82.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having left school at the age of just fourteen, Brian spent his entire working life in radio \u2013 his on-air career spanning three states.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"545\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-5822.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-145052\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a 2021 interview on <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pilotsoftheairwaves.podbean.com\/\">Paul Walsh\u2019s Pilots of the Airwaves podcast, <\/a>Brian described himself as an average sort of a student who couldn\u2019t wait to leave school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was kind of in a hurry to get into radio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brian started out as a panel operator at Sydney\u2019s 2GB and 2UE in the early 1960s, working alongside the likes of legendary names such as Ward Austin, Ken Sparkes, Gary O\u2019Callaghan and John Laws.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"847\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-5824.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-145054\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His on-air journey began as a mid-dawn announcer on 2UE.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reflecting on those days, Brian said \u201cEven at that stage, all of the capital city radio cities had a live midnight to dawn shift. They regarded it as a very important lead into the Breakfast shift.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI guess that has been missing on a lot of stations in a lot of markets for quite a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"678\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-5823-1024x678.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-145053\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brian then moved to Tasmania, taking up an on-air role at 7EX.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keen to work in Melbourne radio, an opportunity arose at 3XY \u2013 whose on-air talent of the day included Graham Kennedy and Mike Walsh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brian moved back to the mainland, hosting the night shift on 3XY for $90 a week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat was considered reasonable money, I believe, in those days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the early 1970s, Brian had taken over the coveted job of hosting 3XY Breakfast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over his six-plus decades in radio, Brian worked on-at a host of stations including Melbourne\u2019s 3KZ, 3AW and 3DB and Perth\u2019s 6iX, 6PM, PMFM and 6KY.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He is also widely remembered as a respected Program Director.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fellow radio veteran Alan McGirvan remembers Brian as being not only a lovely person but a great on-air talent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe was consistent at his own style. An ideal floater. You could put him in there when the star went away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s fair to say that he was a good soul, and that you knew that anyone who didn\u2019t like him wasn\u2019t worth knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Images: Facebook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian radio industry is today mourning another huge loss, with the death of Perth-based broadcaster Brian Lehman,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[89931,158810,231493,391293,64,63,391294,134,136],"class_list":["post-816281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2gb","tag-2ue","tag-3xy","tag-7ex","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brian-lehman","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}