ABC presenter Trevor Chappell to hang up mic after 26 years

ABC Overnights presenter Trevor Chappell announces his retirement after more than a quarter of a century Tue 30 Jun 2026 at 5:03am After 26 years of keeping Australia's night owls company on ABC radio across Australia, Overnights presenter Trevor Chappell has decided to call it a day. The 65-year-old will host his last Overnights show on Thursday, July 30. While the rest of the country has slept, Trevor has been a familiar voice for shift workers and insomniacs since 2000. Having worked in mining, trained as a teacher and even dabbled in acting school (he quit when he realised he could never remember the lines), Trevor's love affair with radio started with a pamphlet he found on the coffee table of his Melbourne share house. It took him to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts to study broadcasting. It was there that one of his lecturers gave him some advice that he has carried with him ever since: "Never underestimate the relationship you have with your listeners because they know you far better than you know them". It didn't take too long for Trevor to get snapped up as a producer and roving reporter, before he was offered the Overnights gig. He recalls that terrifying first night on air in 2000 when he was surrounded by pieces of paper with extensive notes and tightly written scripts. But when his first talkback caller rang in — Pamela from Queensland — all the nerves disappeared. "She was so kind and welcoming that it made it so easy," Trevor says. "She would regularly call. It was always wonderful when I talked to her." Like so many of his listeners since, Trevor developed a personal connection with Pamela and visited her during a trip to Queensland. Sadly, when she went into a nursing home, it became too difficult for her to call. The relationship with Overnights listeners is an intimate one. Trevor says they have been companions to him as much as he has been a companion to them. "I got to know people over a period of time, It's not friendship, it's companionship. You get to know people," he says. "You get to know their history, what makes them laugh. You can muck around a bit and not be too serious. "By having that relationship, it encourages more people to call in as well." There's Simon, who calls in and always says "box of birds". There's Don, who used to call in every year to request the same song for his wedding anniversary. There's the regular caller who makes notes of all the things Trevor got wrong since they last spoke. "There would be truck drivers who have been with me since the beginning. There are people who have called in in the last three or four years who have said they have never called but have been listening since the beginning." And then there are the people Trevor has lost. Like June from Portland and the show's royal correspondent, Barry. These have been, Trevor says, among the many times he has cried on air — moments that have struck him out of nowhere. He still gets choked up remembering the listener who called in to reminisce about taking her child for their first day of school. "A woman said it affected her most when she went shopping and she had no-one's hand to hold and it still makes me feel funny," Trevor says. "She had no-one's hand to hold and that really affected her." There was the widow who had just nursed her husband through his final days, watching him slowly slip away with Alzheimer's. When she told Trevor she was up in the night because she felt so lonely, he had to play a song to pull himself together. But there have been lots of laughs, too. Like when Trevor asked listeners what colour the werewolf's hair was in the Warren Zevon song, Werewolves of London. As people kept calling in to say that the werewolf's hair was "perfect", Trevor was adamant they were wrong. "I had misheard the lyric for my whole life. I thought the lyric was 'his hair was purple'," he says. "I went to a song and looked it up. I had to come back and apologise." He copped a lot of grief for that one. Trevor still laughs at the incredibly creatively insult he received from one listener, who texted in to say he sounded like "a eunuch in a wind tunnel". Another time, Trevor received a text and asked Overnights gardening expert, Sabrina Hahn, "Can you give me some advice on using kar-le?" "[Sabrina] laughed and laughed and then she said, 'I think you meant kale'. So that became a running gag for ages." These memories speak to the deep connection Trevor has with listeners. There's a closeness that develops during the night because, as Trevor says, "We are different to day people". People reveal things about themselves that they wouldn't in daylight hours. "It's the best job. You talk to really interesting people and you have the time to talk to people. Daytime radio does not give you the time," he says. "I can talk to a listener for three or four minutes." Trevor achieved his aim of creating a positive show. Mindful that many Overnights listeners live with anxiety, Trevor has never wanted the show's topics to be triggering or distressing. "I don't think I'd change anything … I feel proud of what we have done and I will feel sad to leave it. "If I was making the decision (to retire) purely by heart, I wouldn't leave. I love doing the job and talking to the people, but the head says it's enough." For Trevor, working the graveyard shift has been a lifestyle, not just a job, and one that has suited him just fine. It was quiet in the night and Trevor describes himself as shy. But his time has come to hang up the microphone. Red Symons and Trevor were passing ships in the nights for many years at ABC Southbank when the former Skyhooks guitarist presented 774 ABC Melbourne Breakfast. "Trevor and I were two lonely, old guys who bumped into each other in the night," Red says. "He was always pleased to see me because it meant that he was nearly finished. I was pleased to see him because I was about to start. "What we had in common was that we both had the company of the callers." Long-time colleague Michael Pavlich started working with Trevor in the 1990s, when they were both producers with 774. And Michael was Trevor's studio producer for a large portion of his Overnights stint. The pair produced one of Trevor's favourite Overnight shows when Trevor did live crosses into the studio from the side of the road in the Pilliga Forest in northern New South Wales. The site had been nominated as one of the scariest places in Australia by Overnights listeners. Michael says he could never have imagined in the 1990s that the pair would still be colleagues all these years later. "Through his dedication and his commitment to the time slot, Trevor has built a national audience that established ABC Overnights as a significant presence on the media landscape," Michael says. "The spontaneous nature of the program and the uncontrollable laughter that often resulted always provided a wonderful antidote to the unsociable working hours we shared. "He is a gifted communicator who takes pride in his honesty, and someone who always treats listeners and colleagues with an even temperament and great respect. He has never thrown an underarm in his life." (Trevor is no relation to the cricketer of the same name, who is best remembered for bowling the infamous underarm delivery on the final ball of a one-day international against New Zealand in Melbourne in 1981, under instructions from his captain and older brother, Greg Chappell.) Overnights day producer John Standish says it has been a pleasure producing Trevor in recent years, after Trevor returned to Overnights from a stint on Afternoons. "I'm not sure how he's managed to maintain his good humour after decades on the graveyard shift," John says. "He's just as charming, relaxed and respectful off-air as he is behind the mic." For Trevor's part, he says he simply could not have lasted so long without the support of wife Cathy and his producers. Even so, this much-loved presenter and member of the ABC team is not sure how he will say goodbye. "I'm trying not to think about it. It will be really sad. I'm going to have to try really hard to hold back the tears."