Welcome to the world of Kochie Incorporated
Former Sunrise television host and financial guru David Koch shares his experience in running businesses small and large is extraordinary, his advice priceless.
WHEN this writer left Sydney’s 7 News some months ago, it was said the network was losing a man who “helped David Koch become comfortable in front of the camera.”
I rang Kochie to apologise and explain that I hadn’t planted that line.
He laughed it off. It was true that when David began doing finance segments for Channel News, I was assigned as his field producer.
That was after he filed a story that included a 26-second piece to camera. “The executive producer went ballistic!” he recalls.
The average PTC is about 10 seconds; Kochie’s would have taken up about a third of the story.
My job was to advise on those PTCs, live crosses, the techniques of what was for him a new medium.
But he was no greenhorn.
Then in his early 40s, Kochie had studied accountancy, written for The Australian, BRW, created Personal Investment magazine, and was a regular radio commentator.
An ace communicator, with incredible contacts.
As he confided during one outback road trip, Kochie had an ambition to “be someone” by the time he was 30.
He’d achieved it already but there was plenty more to come.
Kochie took to TV like a fish to water and in 2002 was asked to fill in as co-host of 7’s Sunrise breakfast show, alongside Melissa Doyle.
“I was only hired for three months,” he says. “And I didn’t particularly want to do it because it was a straight news-reading show then. Reading from an autocue didn’t really excite me much.”
Besides, Sunrise didn’t rate. Staff worked out of a demountable in the carpark.
“I said, ‘if I can be myself, I’ll give it a go.’ They said, ‘Er, well… within reason.’”
Kochie “being Kochie” boosted ratings, and he was asked to go fulltime.
Within 18 months Sunrise was beating Nine’s flagship Today show. His temporary gig lasted 21 years and made Kochie a superstar.
“It was the longest fill-in job in the world,” he laughs.
He was nominated for a silver Logie in 2004 and 2005. Voted Australia’s Best Finance Journalist, Small Business Champion, one of 10 most influential people in retail financial services, and among the top 25 most trusted people in Australia.
Kochie was the 2007 Father of the Year and honoured with the Order of Australia in 2024.
He’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro twice to raise money for charity – among his many philanthropic endeavours – and walked the Kokoda Track.
That’s an impressive professional resume. But Koch is also beloved for being a dork: his dad jokes, singing with INXS, kneeling before idol Julie Andrews, wearing a toupee on April Fool’s Day.
As the Sydney Morning Herald noted in 2004, “Kochie is a reality check for blow-dried, cosmetically perfect commercial television. He isn’t handsome, hirsute or Jamie Durie-hunky.”
“Look, I’m no oil painting, and I never had a professional TV voice,” he admits.
“But in three and a half hours of live TV every day, you can’t pretend to be something you’re not. I was just a normal, real person.”
He left those 3.45am starts to devote more time to family and footy but hardly takes it easy.
Koch remains President of Port Adelaide Football Club and chair of the South Australian Tourism Commission, plus many other side hustles now including AC’s Settlement Day.
“Retirement for me, he says, “is more flexibility. I just like being busy.”
