Kon Karamountzos has clocked 25 years as a producer for Radio ABC Melbourne, “A quarter of its 100 years of the station’s life.”

The station, which began life in 1924 as 3LO, is celebrating its centenary.

“I’m very privileged to be part of ABC Radio.”

ABC Radio Melbourne’s 100th birthday party will be on Friday, October 18, at the Athenaeum Theatre.

He was also the founding director of the Melbourne International Rebetiko Festival and has been behind the promotions of cutting-edge Xylouris/White duo of contemporary Cretan music.

Bushfire broadcasts and a commitment to the community

Karamountzos and his team, won a Walkley Award for his coverage of the Black Saturday fires that devastated Victoria in 2009. The fires resulted in 180 deaths, 450 injuries, the destruction of over 2,000 homes, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, along with millions of farm and native animals. The devastation resulted in a Royal Commission in the aftermath.

Karamountzos ensured that radio played a role in “helping people rebuild their lives and their community.”

“We started an ABC station from scratch in Kinglake to give the local community a place to go to seek help, for accommodation, to help farmers rebuild fences destroyed by the fire, to help locals search for friends and relatives, or find food.”

ABC Kinglake Ranges, his initiative, provided crucial information to areas in the Shire of Murrindindi affected by the devastating Black Saturday bushfires.

“We handed the radio station back to the community, and it became Kinglake Rangers radio station.”

The service offered a crucial connection for affected communities during the challenging recovery period following the bushfires, says the ABC Radio producer.

“I think it is important to always aim to be useful and reflect our community.”

Karamountzos believes that the “commitment to emergency broadcasting” was a major initiative by former ABC Radio manager and veteran journalist Ian Mannix.

“Ian Mannix’s legacy is ABC Radio emergency broadcasting – that’s been ground-breaking, other stations have followed suit.

“You know, this time of year, as we approach summer, we’re always thinking about emergencies.”

Milestones and memories: Highlights from a career in radio

Karamountzos has covered major events in Australia and globally, such as various Olympics, the Bali Bombings, Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and more.

“We’ve broadcast from some amazing places and major events in Melbourne, and I’ve been involved in sports broadcasting from London for the 2012 Olympics, the 2016 Rio Games, and only recently did the 2024 Paris Olympics.”

Two events stand out for Karamountzos outside the Black Saturday fires: Sorry Day, when then prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the First Nations People over the Stolen Generation and bringing to light an unknown massacre of civilians by the Germans on Crete in World War II.

“An unforgettable moment was in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra with John Faine when we broadcast ‘Sorry Day’ that was extraordinary in its power.”

In 2019, he was researching the Massacre of Kondomari in Crete in preparation for Anzac Day and the Battle of Crete commemoration. The photos of German paratroopers smiling as they shot civilians for what was to be known as the Massacre of Kondomari are etched in his mind forever.

“It was, I thought, the first mass execution of civilians by Germans in Crete, and I was interested,” Karamountzos said.

While researching that infamy, he met Vassilis Papadopoulos, a survivor of another little-known massacre in Rethymnon.

Papadopoulos, 86, told Karamountzos of his mother’s final words out of his mind, “If anyone survives this, please look after my children.”

“He was a survivor of a massacre that occurred before Kondomari” he says, and cannot forget the “pain in this man’s eyes”.

Entertainment, talk-back and text message chaos

Being entertaining is as crucial as uncovering the truth and providing a service, Karamountzos says and points to the “wildly successful morning talk-back” show by musician and entertainer Red Symons.

“I was Red’s producer for so many years, and the Red Symons show was a massive success and a big role for me.”

Karamountzos acknowledges the recent challenging ratings but says there are other more powerful indicators, such as “listeners on talk back topics”.

“The real indicator is how people listen; there are new and very diverse voices, and you get a range of different demographics, from various backgrounds, ages, and cultures.”

“Our demographic is broad – we will not appeal to the 21-year-olds, but we do have a broad range of people.”

Karamountzos is aware of the history of the station, and to mark the day, it was important to broadcast “from somewhere significant,” thus the Athenaeum Theatre.

“The first-ever broadcast 3LO did was Dame Nelly Melba’s performance of La Boheme in front of a live audience in 1924, which is amazing to think that they were able to do an outside broadcast in 1924.

He said that they found out that “the curtain used for her initial performance is now at the Athenaeum Theatre.”

Friday’s celebratory broadcast will include “the old crew coming together, Jon Faine, Ramona Koval, Terry Lane and more.”

There are also performances by TISM, The Teskey Brothers, and Vika and Linda Bull.

Producing 250 shows per year, and “all live, there’s bound to be unexpected things to happen.”

Karamountzos says that “when text messages first came into play in talk-back radio”, one morning producing Red Symons, someone was texting “pretty aggressive messages –not nice things about Red”.

“We have a website where text messages come in, and the last comment was, ‘You’ve wasted 10 minutes of my time that I will never get back’, so I responded via this website, ‘Thanks for your time, Nick’ which I thought I was sending it directly to him, but no, a few seconds later the phone just went bananas, my text went to thousands of people.”

The phones did not stop until Wednesday the following week, he says, with listeners bemused, asking, “Why is the ABC sending me this message?”.

“At the end of the show, I saw Jon Faine, and he saw that he was visibly upset and shaken, so Jon said, ‘Calm down. Calm down. What happened?’

“I said, ‘Mate, I’m going to get the sack I’ve done this massive stuff up; I hit ‘reply all’ to 45,000 people’ Jon Faine just erupted in laughter and told me not to worry and helped me get over it.”

Kon Karamountzos is entertaining the idea of another 25 years, “Working in radio is one of the greatest jobs on the planet, so I’ll give it another 25.”

The celebrations on Friday at the Athenaeum Theatre will bring together current and past presenters, such as Jon Faine and Raph Epstein, to share memories. It will be hosted by Jacinta Parsons and Brian Nankervis and will include performances by Tina Arena, The Tesky Brothers, and other Australian artists.