Mike Carlton

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Mike Carlton is a Sydney Radio announcer. He hosts the daily breakfast program on 2UE with Peter FitzSimons and writes a Saturday column for The Sydney Morning Herald. Carlton is often critical of many public figures including Prime Minister John Howard and radio personality Alan Jones. He is strongly opposed to the policies of the Australian Liberal Party and is generally regarded as a proponent of left wing social and political theory. He is of course a very wealthy man in his own right having successfully based his radio career on strong public appeals to one side of politics.

In the early 1990s he was a presenter for London's LBC Newstalk 97.3FM, then under Australian ownership. At first he presented the drivetime programme, but it was as presenter of The Morning Report breakfast programme that he came to prominence, winning a prestigious Sony gold radio award. This programme became required listening in London and helped to change the station's financial fortunes.

In 1997 he wrote a novel set at a London talk radio station called Off the Air.

In 1994 Carlton returned to Sydney to host a morning program on music station Mix 106.5. He then moved to the drive slot at the ABC's Sydney AM station, then called 2BL, now called 702 for its broadcast frequency. He built a large following over his time there (with a format that's largely been retained in the years since) before being poached by commercial broadcaster 2UE.

Carlton hosted Sydney talk radio station 2UE's drive (3pm-6pm) program for a number of years, before moving to the breakfast timeslot (5:30am - 9am). In a move to hopefully improve ratings, 2UE management teamed Carlton with media personality, fellow Sydney Morning Herald columnist and longtime friend of Carlton's, Peter FitzSimons on the breakfast show in 2006. The ratings for the show gradually improved. They are however still behind former workmate, now rival Alan Jones, whom Carlton often ridicules and impersonates on his program.