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When Tim Shaw recently got up and asked Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the National Press Club it was a familiar response that he got.

“But wait, there’s more!”

Many Australians will remember Shaw for fronting the phenomenally successful Demtel television infomercial campaign from 1992 to 1995.

There was barely a day or night for those three years that Shaw didn’t appear on our television screens selling everything from steak knives to CDs, to pillows, you name it.

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Now he works as a breakfast radio presenter for Canberra’s 2CC and is a director of the prestigious National Press Club.

It is at the Press Club in Canberra is where he had his moment with the PM.

“I still get people coming up who recognise me from the Demtel ads, even the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison” he told news.com.au

“The last question I asked him at the Press Club, he piped up and said, ‘but wait, there’s more’.

“Thank you so much, Prime Minister, let’s just answer the questions.”

Laughing as he talks about his encounter with the PM, Shaw doesn’t shy away from the his history with Demtel, or the success of the campaign.

At one stage it was a true advertising phenomenon, part of it because of the value that Shaw brought to the ad.

“I think at one stage I was on air around 23 minutes a night,” Shaw said.

“There was a real power of television advertising, pre-internet. I think we were selling 100 million dollars worth of product a year. All people had to do is pick up the phone and call.”

In the time Shaw was at the helm of Demtel he got the company fantastic results.

He was getting paid $200 an advertisement, Demtel got Shaw for a bargain considering the amount of money he made for the company.

“We sold a million knives, 600,000 classics CDs and it turned a lovely, shy and retiring Tim Shaw into a nationally recognised iconic figure,” he laughs.

Talking about the steak knives, that was his all time favourite product, but the strangest?

“For the value of the offer, the six steak knives if you ring in the 15 minutes, that was a classic favourite,” he said.

“The funniest one was the run free pantyhose, because I never sold a product that I never used myself so I would actually sample all the product.

“The children’s mother got a pair of those run free pantyhose and I sent a pair to Alexander Downer.”

“No I didn’t, that was a joke,” he said.

Demtel was actually founded 25 years earlier in the United States according to Shaw.

“It was 25 years earlier that a marketing guy in America kind of created the terminology, ‘but wait there is more,’ and the owners of Demtel — which means Demonstration Television — lapped it up,” he said.

“They wanted to put a fact to the brand in Australia and I was the guy that they picked.

“They were sometimes four-minute advertorials and you could be selling fry pans of knives or CDs and people paid attention.”

In 1995 Shaw wrote to the program director at Sydney radio station 2UE, determined not to be typecast and remembered forever for the Demtel advertising campaign.

It might have been a prophetic move for Shaw, as the power of the advertorial on television and print catalogues weakened as the internet age came booming down in the second half of the 1990s and 2000s.

“I wrote to the Sydney radio station program director at the time and he gave me a break to fill in on afternoon radio and that was back in 1995, so I’ve been involved in commercial radio ever since coming up to 25 years,” he said.

“At the time the company was being sold and I think it was the right time to move on.

“It was just the right time for me to go ‘thanks very much, that’s a good experience,’ and try something different.”

Part of the new career for Shaw included living in Thailand for a few years reporting news for the Seven Network based in Bangkok.

One story he broke exclusive details on during his time in Thailand was the surrogacy drama around baby Gammy, the down syndrome baby who was left with her the surrogate who gave birth to her by her Australian parents.

“I left Thailand on the 19th of December 2015 and I moved back to Canberra soon after that,” he said.

“The timing was right to come back from Asia.

“I started on air on the 11th of January 2016, here in Canberra.”

Shaw describes moving to Canberra and getting the gig on 2CC as his dream job.

“I think the older we get the wisdom follows, and you have a better set of skills then when we did when we were in our twenties.

“You learn the wisdom that holds you in good stead.”

He admits when he first arrived, not only the PM but others in the business of politics were wondering what he was doing there.

“The first ever question I asked of Scott Morrison, who was then the Treasurer of Australia, the entire press gallery were thinking, what the hell is the Demtel man sitting her doing asking the Treasurer of the Commonwealth?” he said.

“But the great thing about Canberra is it is a great community, there are so many really good people.

“We have the best journalists in Australia working in Canberra. To be one of them now, part of that flock is great.

“I’m certainly not the best, but it’s great to be part of the team.”

He is making waves in the radio world, winning the best current affairs presenter in the 2017 Australian Commercial Radio Awards.

Very respected in his radio role, Shaw can have fun and appreciate the kitsch cultural value and lasting impact the Demtel ads had.

“There was a horse racing on the Gold Coast racing called The Demtel Man and it got third place a couple of weeks ago and paid around $450,” he laughed.

“It lives on.”

Luke Dennehy is a freelance journalist. Continue the conversation via @LukeDennehy

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