Tim Bowden dead at 87: Beloved Australian TV and radio host worked at ABC for decades

David Anderson, the outgoing ABC managing director paid tribute to Tim Bowden, in a statement, he said: “(Tim was) a storyteller whose curiosity for the world around him was valued by so many of our audiences,” he said.

“Tim was part of the generation of ABC journalists who brought those events and their meaning into Australian homes every night.”

David Anderson also said that Tim Bowden was part of the fabric of the ABC for decades” He went on to say that Tim “was generous to his colleagues and was known as much for his sense of humour as his passion for journalism and the ABC.

“Our condolences go to Tim’s family and many friends and colleagues.”

Tim Bowden was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Tasmania in 1960. After graduating, he moved to the UK and worked at the BBC. He was a producer and radio interviewer with the BBC’s Pacific Service. 

After working there for three years, he returned to Tasmania and joined ABC and stayed there for decades. ABC reported that Tim Bowden said: "Journalists are generally rated in the public mind on the same level as used car salesmen, lawyers, politicians or other professionals of dubious reputation.”

"But I've always been a happy traveller in journalism which … gets you into all kinds of situations that you otherwise would have had a snowflake's chance in hell of experiencing."

During his career, Tim Bowden worked as a war correspondent in Vietnam, before that, he was a foreign correspondent with the ABC in Singapore and covered conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia in the mid 1960s.

Tim Bowden is well-known for being the host of the TV show Backchat that was on air until 1994, in that same year, he received an Order of Australia for services to public broadcasting.

Journalist Leigh Sales paid tribue to him and said: “I wanted to mark the passing of ABC legend Tim Bowden. He was a remarkable journalist and somebody who stood for the best of the ABC, from his work as a foreign correspondent in the 1960s, to setting up the network’s social history unit, to hosting Backchat, to his remarkable documentaries on Antarctica. He was beloved by the audience and rightly admired by generations of colleagues.”