Born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1937, Hayes started out in newspapers and broadcasting before relocating to the UK in the early 1970s.
His career in Britain lasted more than half a century and featured some of the most influential speech radio programming of its time.
He became recognised for a forthright interviewing style that helped shape the sound of LBC during its early decades in the 1970s and 1980s.
He joined Capital Radio at its launch in 1973 as a producer, eventually moving on air.
He later joined LBC to present its morning phone-in from 1976.
The programme became one of the station’s defining shows and established him as one of the network’s most familiar voices.
After leaving LBC in 1990, he moved to BBC Radio 2 in 1992 where he presented the breakfast programme “Good Morning UK!”.
Although his time on breakfast was short, he remained with the network and hosted the weekly phone-in Hayes over Britain, which won a Sony Radio Award for Best Phone-In.
His later work included presenting on BBC Radio 5 Live as well as coming back to LBC in the 2000s.
