SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Washington: David Hill’s 2025 began in fear. A Los Angeles resident for 30 years, his home in the Pacific Palisades was nearly eaten up by the wildfire that ripped through the coastal neighbourhood in early January, killing 12 people and destroying thousands of houses.
Hill and his wife Joan were evacuated for eight days, but the bricks and mortar survived – thanks to a wind shift, they were told. Many friends were not so lucky.
David Hill came into his own at Channel Nine, where he shook up the production of sport – including the rebel World Series Cricket – under then station owner Kerry Packer.Credit: Arsineh Houspian
“It’s devastating,” he says. “You drive through the area and it brings tears to your eyes … Flying out of LAX this morning, there’s Santa Monica, and then there’s this huge black area where the Palisades were.”
But then came better news. In the space of two weeks, the veteran Australian-born sports television producer found out he would receive not one but two lifetime achievement awards; one from the Sports Emmys, the other from industry bible Sports Business Journal.
Hill may be American these days, but it’s difficult to erase the Australian instinct for modesty. When the Emmys called, he said he was already getting a similar award from the Journal. “I think you ought to change your mind,” he told them.
They didn’t. Hill will collect the gongs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, New York time, respectively, at separate ceremonies in the city. Coincidentally, Wednesday is his 79th birthday.
Then producer David Hill working at a cricket Test in the M.A. Noble Stand at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1983. Credit: Stuart William MacGladrie/Fairfax Media
“It’s a massive abnormality for the same person to get back-to-back lifetime achievement awards. To be honest, it’s a little overwhelming,” he says. “I like to keep a low profile and stay under the parapet, but God almighty, this is really putting your head over the parapet.”
Hill was born in Newcastle, NSW, and got his start as a copy boy at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. He worked at the ABC and Seven, but came into his own at Channel Nine, where he shook up the production of sport – including the rebel World Series Cricket – under then station owner Kerry Packer.
“Working for Kerry Packer for 11 years – it was like doing a PhD in life,” Hill says. “I’ve described him as an inspired and inspiring dyslexic, insomniac gambler. Unbelievably charismatic, knew exactly what he wanted … I think I was sacked 21 times and resigned 24 times.”
Hill went on to work for Rupert Murdoch, setting up Sky Television and its sports unit in Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1993, Murdoch tapped him to run the newly created Fox Sports in the United States after sensationally outbidding CBS to nab the rights to broadcast National Football Conference matches.
Kerry Packer talks to John Cornell at a press conference for the launch of World Series Cricket in 1977.Credit: SMH Archives
He went on to become a long-serving senior vice president at 21st Century Fox, win an Emmy for his production of the 2011 baseball World Series, and produce seasons of American Idol and The X Factor. Shortly after leaving Fox, he co-produced the telecast of the 2016 Academy Awards.
Despite his long and senior career at Fox, Hill no longer watches Fox News, nor any national cable TV news, preferring local bulletins such as NBC.
“For my mental health, I no longer watch CNN, Fox News or any of them,” he says. “I got pissed off with Fox News’ attitude years ago. As an old journo, I watch a lot of news. But I don’t watch opinion because I want to make up my own mind.”
David Hill pictured in 1985, when he was director of sport for Channel Nine under Kerry Packer.Credit: Fairfax Media archive
Australians who have not been exposed to 24/7 cable news in the US might be surprised by the hyper-partisan nature of many networks, including Fox News and Newsmax on the right and MSNBC on the left (and CNN to a lesser extent).
Adding to that is a new wave of podcasters, YouTubers and influencers producing “news”, interviews and infotainment, who command an increasing number of eyeballs and wield a growing level of influence.
Hill says Australians often ask him about the “dreadful” Fox News but overestimate its sway in a country of nearly 350 million people. Fox News averages about 3 million viewers in evening primetime; it dominates cable news and, in some recent surveys, beat broadcast networks NBC and ABC.
Still, Hill says it’s a drop in the ocean. “How do you think Fox News is swinging the country with that tiny number of viewers? As each day goes by, the power of television news lessens and the power of the podcasters and YouTubers grows and grows.”
He also points out that cumulatively, the late-night talk shows – Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon – win more eyeballs than Fox News and generally skew left-wing. (Hill plucked Kimmel off the radio in the 1990s and gave him a start on Fox NFL Sunday).
Hill was surprised but excited to learn the NFL plans to open its 2026 season with a regular-season game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between the Los Angeles Rams and another, yet-to-be-named team. The multi-year deal is a commercial arrangement with the Victorian government.
He was blissfully unaware that Australia’s NRL held its season launch in Las Vegas at the start of March. “If it happened, it totally didn’t touch the Los Angeles market,” he says. “I didn’t see or hear anything about it.”
