Inducted into the Australian Commercial Radio Awards Hall of Fame in 2018, Lee Simon’s 47-year career in radio has been witness to enormous success across both AM and FM bands.

From his days as a popular music DJ on 3XY in the 1970s, Simon later became a commanding radio executive for Triple M, most notably introducing Australian Football League broadcasting to commercial FM radio in 1997.

In this excerpt from his 2010 oral history with interviewer Wendy Stapleton, Simon recounts the initial programming strategies of EON-FM as Australian first FM commercial radio station in July 1980 and, as its first program director, the significant decision he made the following year which helped reverse the flagging fortunes of the nascent FM broadcaster.