Gregory James Sparks (4 March 1952 – 13 July 2024), better known by his broadcast name Ron E Sparks, was an Australian broadcaster and radio and television voiceover artist.

Early career

Sparks worked in several regional radio stations before moving to

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

in the 1970s, where he managed to score a role on air at the then-top-rated AM station

2SM 2SM is an Australian radio station, licensed to and serving Sydney, broadcasting on 1269 kilohertz on the AM band. It is owned and operated by Broadcast Operations Group. The SM call sign is taken from the initials of Saint Mary's. 2SM's prog ...

as Ron E. Sparx, and quickly became one of Sydney's most respected announcers, interviewing many stars of the day. In an interview, Sparks stated that 2SM had broader

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

content, playing everything from

AC/DC AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll". They are cited as a formativ ...

and

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones (musician), John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. With a he ...

, to

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand ( ; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, songwriter, producer, and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success across multiple fields of entertainment, being the ...

and

Benny Hill Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 18 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and scriptwriter. He is best remembered for his television programme, ''The Benny Hill Show'', a comedy-variety show whose amalgam of slapstick, bu ...

's milkman song. The "E" in his name does not stand for anything. It was originally added by program director Rod Muir, who thought that "Ronnie Sparx" sounded too immature, and wanted Sparks to transition gradually to using just "Ron", which he had resisted doing. Sparks also made a name as a television voice artist, and provided voice overs for several Australian television shows, such as '' Wheel of Fortune'' and '' Hot Streak''. On 1 October 1978, he hosted a special edition of ABC-TV's ''

Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

'' called ''Rocktober''. After leaving 2SM, Sparks became the program director of another Sydney AM station, 2UW. After leaving 2UW he worked on top-rating FM station

Triple M Triple M is an Australian commercial radio network owned and operated by Southern Cross Austereo. The network consists of 45 radio stations with flagship stations broadcasting a mainstream/classic rock music format in Sydney, Melbourne, and B ...

for almost six years before being lured to rival station

2Day FM 2Day FM (call sign 2DAY) is a commercial FM radio station broadcasting in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on a frequency of 104.1 MHz, and is part of Southern Cross Austereo's Hit Network. History 1980s 2Day FM was one of three radio st ...

in 1994.Genius of broadcasting listened to by half the available audience
Glenn A Baker ''Sydney Morning Herald'' 23 July 2024

Departure from 2Day FM

As 2Day FM grew more corporate and merged with Triple M, Sparks grew increasingly frustrated with group politics and had a hard time dealing with the egos of young network 'upstarts' who were given endless rope to play with. For some young 'stars' it seemed that they could do no wrong, and management always made excuses for them. One particular complaint he had was with the night team ( Kyle & Jackie O) smoking in the studio. This had been going on for some time, and despite it being illegal (2Day was in a

high rise building High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift to ...

Bondi Junction Bondi Junction is an Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 6 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Local government in Australia, local governm ...

, it was frowned upon at the time. It since has become illegal to smoke in Australian workplaces), the

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

failed to take any action. One morning in 2001, Sparks arrived for his shift to find the studio smelling of stale smoke, and littered with cigarette butts, some of which were floating in glasses of water. He became upset, and wrote "No Smoking" with a marker pen on every physical object he could find in the studio. Sparks had used

permanent marker A permanent marker or indelible marker is a type of marker pen that is used to create permanent or semi-permanent writing on an object. Description In general, permanent marker ink comprises a main carrier solvent, a glyceride, a 2-Pyrrolidon ...

, which destroyed several hundred dollars' worth of equipment, and he was sacked immediately following his shift that day. Sparks refused media interviews, even though the large majority agreed with him and applauded his actions. He contemplated legal action against 2Day but decided against it, in the interest of saving his career. Sparks was only out of work for a week before being offered work at Nova 96.9 for the 2001 summer period. In 2002, he moved to WSFM, from which he departed in December 2017 after almost 16 years with WSFM. He was the voice of the

Capital Radio Network Capital Radio Network is an Australian radio company, which owns stations in Canberra, Goulburn, Cooma, the Snowy Mountains, Gippsland and Perth. The company is a subsidiary of Blyton Group, with Kevin James Blyton as managing director for bo ...

station

2CA 2CA is an Australian Commercial broadcasting, commercial radio station on the AM band serving Canberra. It is jointly owned by the Capital Radio Network and Grant Broadcasters. The station broadcasts on AM Stereo 1053 kHz and on Digital Au ...

for three decades.

Personal life and death

Sparks was born Gregory James Sparks on 4 March 1952 and was raised in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. He later lived in the north Sydney suburb of

Cammeray Cammeray is a residential suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Northern Sydney and is part of the North Sydney Council local government area. History Aboriginal culture Cammeray takes its name from the Cammeraygal people, an Aboriginal ...

with his wife and two sons. He died from cancer on 13 July 2024, at the age of 72.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sparks, Ron E 1952 births 2024 deaths Australian media personalities Mass media people from Brisbane Triple M presenters