About Margaret Throsby
Born 1941. Margaret Throsby is an Australian radio personality.
Margaret Ellen Throsby AM, (born 1941) is an Australian radio and television broadcaster. She is known for having interviewed thousands of notable people for Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio programs. Throsby was the first woman in Australia to present TV News at the ABC. was born in 1941 in Neutral Bay, a lower north shore suburb of Sydney. Her father was Charles Throsby, an English barrister who died when she was 12, and her mother was Alison Battarbee, a cellist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She attended North Sydney Girls High School, then spent a year studying speech pathology after leaving school. Since then she has overcome major barriers to the accepted roles for women in broadcasting. On 15 October 1975 she became the first woman to read national radio news since World War II, and in 1978 she was the first woman to present national television news. was a weekly Australian radio program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Classic FM network. Guests came from a wide range of backgrounds, including "Prime Ministers, divas, trailblazers and humanitarians", and the guests' lives, work and musical interests were explored in wide-ranging interviews. Her interviews based on this format spanned around 25 years. In October of that year, it was announced that her program would no longer be aired, but she would continue to present concerts broadcast on ABC Classic FM.
From November 2019 Throsby presented The Margaret Throsby Interviews at 10am on Mondays on Classic FM.
Over the course of her career, Throsby's thousands of interviewees have included Paul Keating, Jane Fonda, Bruce Beresford, Yvonne Kenny, John le Carre and Spike Milligan.
Personal life Throsby is the sister of David Throsby, a cultural economist, and Adrienne Bennett, formerly executive director of the Australian Psychological Society.
She has been married and divorced three times. From her first marriage she had a son, Timothy Marc, who died in a motorbike accident in Thailand in 1996. From her second marriage, to John Buttsworth, a psychiatrist and art and furniture dealer, she is the mother of the musician Holly Throsby. Her third marriage was to Graham McCarter, a Scottish photographer. She also has a stepdaughter, Caitlin.
Honours and awards 1989: In the Queen's Birthday Honours, Member of the Order of Australia, for service to radio broadcasting Variety Club of Australia's Radio Award Two Avion Awards for the best in the world in-flight programs (Qantas) Golden Gavel Award presented by the Law Society of New South Wales for "Excellence in Legal Reporting" Children's Week Award for Services to Children – Media Award Rostrum Speaker of the Year
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Important facts
People in Margaret Throsby's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Margaret Throsby's
Frequently asked questions
Who is Margaret Throsby?
Australian radio presenter
When was Margaret Throsby born?
Margaret Throsby was born on 3 October 1941 in Neutral Bay.
What is Margaret Throsby's occupation?
Margaret Throsby is a radio personality.
What nationality is Margaret Throsby?
Margaret Throsby is Australian.
Sources & further reading
· Wikipedia: Margaret Throsby
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Margaret Throsby. https://biography.guide/margaret-throsby/
MLA: "Margaret Throsby." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/margaret-throsby/.
Chicago: "Margaret Throsby." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/margaret-throsby/.
Data last updated: 2026-09-22 · Spot an error? Report a correction.
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