John Hickling: a radio man of his time: a biographical study

"The Golden Age of Radio" in Australia was characterised by the many creative people who captured the opportunities of the medium and learnt to perform or write for it over the comparatively short time span that it was the main home entertainment in Australia.

Such a person was radio producer John Hickling. He was involved in the commercial radio industry almost from its inception, commencing his career in radio advertising in 1929, before developing into one of the most prolific producers of quality radio dramas from the mid-1930s until the arrival of television in 1956. He pioneered the use of dramatised news in Australia and was prominent in the use of verse drama as a radio drama presentation method, yet he remains relatively unknown in the annals of the industry.

This biographical study sets out to briefly examine the forces which moulded Hickling, analyse his contribution to Australian radio drama, chronicle his eventual decline as the radio industry was overtaken by television and ponder on why he did not become a household name as did many of his contemporaries.