Dickson is the grandson of former professional footballer Ian Dickson from Dumfries. As well as playing for hometown club Queen of the South, Dickson the footballer also played for Middlesbrough and for Aston Villa; while playing for the last he set roots in Birmingham, his grandson's home town.[1]
In 2001, he moved to Sydney to take up the position of General Manager of Marketing for Sony BMG Australia, and remained in the role until August 2004.[4]
2003–2004: Australian Idol
In 2003, Dickson took up his best-known role—as the "nasty" judge on Australian Idol in the first and second seasons—alongside fellow judges Marcia Hines and Mark Holden. The first series premiered on 27July 2003 on Network Ten. Viewers initially disliked him for his insensitive, cold attitude (including controversial comments on a female contestant's weight), but towards the end of his tenure he became popular for his candid assessments of performances based on his expertise and experience within the record industry.[citation needed] He was also Australia's judge at the first (and so far only) World Idol in December 2003.
2005–2006: Seven Network
Near the end of the 2004 series of Australian Idol, it was announced that Dickson would be leaving the show and Network Ten to move to the Seven Network to broaden his interests as a presenter and producer. The move caused controversy at the time, as the popularity of Idol and Dickson himself were at their peak.[citation needed] His first role at the Seven Network in 2005 was as host of the second season of reality TV series My Restaurant Rules, succeeding Curtis Stone. Also that year he was a contestant in Dancing with the Stars, placing third.[citation needed]
During this time, Dickson and his business partner and manager, David Wilson, formed Watercooler Media, an independent television production company.
2007–2009: Return to Australian Idol and Network Ten
On 30 November 2006, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Dickson would return to Network Ten in 2007 to become a fourth judge on the fifth season of Australian Idol, rejoining Mark Holden, Marcia Hines and his successor Kyle Sandilands.[5]Season five premiered on 5 August 2007.
Also in 2007 Dickson accepted an offer to be a judge on The Next Great American Band on Fox in the U.S. He was scouted by American Idol executive producers Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick based on his performance at World Idol four years earlier.[citation needed] His fellow judges were Sheila E. and John Rzeznik, and the series premiered on 19 October 2007. Australian Idol and The Next Great American Band were filmed simultaneously, which meant Dickson traveled back and forth between the U.S. and Australia for his filming duties.
In 2008 and 2009, he was again a judge on Australian Idol for seasons six and seven, the final seasons of the series.[citation needed]
In January 2008, it was announced that Dickson would be hosting the breakfast radio show on Vega 91.5 alongside comedian Dave O'Neil and former Big Brother runner-up Chrissie Swan, replacing Denise Scott and Shaun Micallef. The breakfast show was titled Dicko, Dave & Chrissie. Chrissie left the show in 2009 and Dickson and O'Neil continued the show for one more year until its end in 2010.[citation needed]
2010–2011: Can of Worms
On 4 July 2011 Can of Worms premiered on Network Ten with Dickson and Meshel Laurie as hosts. He and his business partner and manager, David Wilson, developed the show, in which celebrities were required to answer yes or no before a live studio audience to tricky moral questions such as, "Is it wrong to tell your kids there is no God?" and "If a woman has had a boob job, is it an open invitation to have a good look?".[6] He and Wilson had pitched the show several times to various TV networks from 2005 to 2009, finally selling the concept to Network Ten with a pitch meeting where Dickson acted as host and the executives the contestants.[citation needed] At the end of the first series he elected not to return as a host of subsequent series but remained as an executive producer.[7]Can of Worms lasted two more seasons with Chrissie Swan and Dan Illic as hosts and ended in 2014.
2012–2014: Young Talent Time, The Celebrity Apprentice Australia and return to radio
After leaving his hosting duties on Can of Worms at the end of 2011, Dickson became a judge on the 2012 reboot of Young Talent Time, initially as a guest judge while Tina Arena was away ill before becoming a full time judge during the finals. He joined the cast of the second season of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia, which premiered on the Nine Network on 18 April 2012. He was announced the winner of the series in the final episode, and split his earnings with runner-up Nathan Joliffee. He won A$204,253 for his nominated charity, The Australian Children's Music Foundation. His soft side seen during the series and the final was in contrast to his persona as the hard-as-nails judge on Australian Idol.[citation needed]
After his win Dickson returned to Europe to spend some time with his family. Upon his return to Australia, he announced he would be returning to radio in 2013 as the breakfast host on Sydney talkback AM radio station 2UE alongside 2UE police reporter Sarah Morice.[8] In 2014 Dickson and Morice moved to the 12pm-3pm shift hosting their show Afternoons with Dicko & Sarah. The show came to an end at the end of 2014.
2015 – Onwards: Return to the judges' chair and First Contact
On 28 October 2015, it was announced that Dickson would be one of the four new judges on the Nine Network's new Australia's Got Talent.[9] The series premiered on 1February 2016 with Dickson as a judge alongside Kelly Osbourne, Sophie Monk and Eddie Perfect.
Starting on 29 November 2016, Dickson appeared in the second season of the TV series First Contact on SBS, one of six well known Australians spending twenty-eight days living in various Indigenous communities across Australia.[10]
Dickson is married to Melanie Bell; they have two daughters and live on the Sunshine Coast. He became an Australian citizen on Australia Day, 26 January 2006, presented by then Prime Minister John Howard.[citation needed]
He is good friends with his Pop Idol and American Idol counterpart Simon Cowell, going back to their days working together in the British music industry. It was Cowell who convinced Dickson to take the role as the "villain judge", despite his reservations given that he was relatively new to his adopted homeland and wanted to settle at a gradual pace. Cowell guaranteed immediate money and fame as incentives.[15]
Dickson is a Foundation Member and ambassador of the Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club and was one of 14 Australian supporters who traveled to Saudi Arabia to watch the club win the AFC Champions League title in 2014.
On an episode of the ABC Australian news program Four Corners broadcast on 19 February 2007, Dickson discussed his problems with alcohol.
Am I an alcoholic or not? Yes, I think, I think I am an alcoholic. I think a lot more people are living under the cosh of booze than they are prepared to recognise. And it's actually quite liberating when you understand that, because you realise there's lots of people in the same boat. You don't have to be sitting on a street corner urinating in your trousers and shadow boxing to be a drunk. I'm living proof.[16]
Dickson is an atheist: "I have developed a spirituality which I suppose you could call metaphysics or science of mind – nothing to do with Scientology, I hasten to add. It's something that was developed by a guy called Ernest Holmes, and it's about the law of the universe, the law of attraction. It's all that stuff that's been popular on The Secret but there's far more to it than that. I'm an atheist but I've got a spirituality I can fall back on. I don't like religion because I see it as a bureaucracy of faith and I've never really been big on bureaucracy."[17]
Australian Idol is an Australian singing competition, which began its first season in July 2003 and ended its initial run in November 2009. As part of the Idol franchise, Australian Idol originated from the reality program Pop Idol, which was created by British entertainment executive Simon Fuller. Australian Idol was televised on Network Ten for its first seven series and was broadcast on the Southern Cross Austereo Radio Network between 2005 and 2007. The series returned in 2023 after Seven Network announced they would be picking up the show.
Mark Ronald Holden is an Australian singer, actor, TV personality, record producer, songwriter, and barrister. He was a pop star in the 1970s and had four top 20 hit singles, "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again", "I Wanna Make You My Lady" (September), "Last Romance" (November) and "Reach Out for the One Who Loves You". Holden regularly appeared on national pop music show, Countdown. Holden is remembered for his clean-cut image, his white dinner suit and his penchant for handing out carnations to girls on the set of the popular television show Countdown – he was nicknamed "The Carnation Kid". In the 1980s he worked as a songwriter in Los Angeles providing material recorded by Meat Loaf, Joe Cocker, Gladys Knight, Bob Welch and Steve Jones. He was one of three original judges on the television series Australian Idol (2003–07) and the first season (2005) of The X Factor. In 2023, Holden voiced "The Old Man" in the narrative video game RoboCop: Rogue City.
World Idol is a one-off international version of the singing competition television show Pop Idol, featuring winners of the various national Idol shows around the world competing against each other.
Popstars Live was an Australian music talent show television program similar to Australian Idol that aired on the Seven Network in early 2004. It was an evolution of the original Popstars TV show which aired between 2000 and 2002 on Seven. The show spawned a single and album that made the ARIA charts in April that year.
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Robert Mills is an Australian actor, television host and singer-songwriter. He was one of the finalists from the first season of Australian Idol in 2003. He co-hosted the late-night quiz show The Mint with his childhood idol, J-Dawg, the two would go on to star in the hit show Young Talent Time, and was a regular singer on the game show The Singing Bee both on the Nine Network. Mills took part in the ninth season of Dancing with the Stars, and appeared on Celebrity Apprentice. In 2008, Mills won the lead male role of Fiyero in a production of Wicked, and continued the role when it moved around Australia. He has since starred in a number of popular large scale musical theatre productions. In 2012, Mills was announced as the host of Network Ten's revamped Young Talent Time. He played teacher Finn Kelly on Neighbours from 2017 until 2022.
Kyle Dalton Sandilands is an Australian radio host, shock jock and television personality. He is currently the co-host, with Jackie O, of the weekday morning radio program The Kyle and Jackie O Show on Sydney's radio station KIIS 106.5.
Osher Günsberg, recognised by his former stage name Andrew G, is an Australian television and radio presenter and journalist. He is the host of the reality TV series The Bachelor Australia, The Bachelorette Australia and Bachelor in Paradise Australia. He is also the narrator of the factual TV series Bondi Rescue as well as the host of the music talent show The Masked Singer Australia.
Dancing with the Stars is an Australian light entertainment reality show which originally aired on the Seven Network from 2004 to 2015 and on Network 10 from 2019 to 2020. When it was on the Seven Network, it was broadcast live from the HSV-7 studios in Melbourne; on Network 10 it aired live from Fox Studios Australia in Sydney and Docklands Studios in Melbourne.
Darren McMullen is a Scottish-Australian television and radio presenter and personality, music journalist and music critic. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and emigrated with his family to Australia at the age of 12. He is best known as the co-host of The Voice Australia. Prior to his career as a presenter, he was a student at Bradfield College and then an advertising executive.
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Australia's Got Talent is an Australian reality television talent show. The show is based on the Got Talent series format that originated in the United Kingdom with Simon Cowell.
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The fifth season of Australian Idol premiered on 5 August 2007 on Network Ten. It concluded on 25 November.
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Can of Worms was an Australian television talk show, broadcast on Network Ten.
The second season of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia began airing on 18 April 2012 on the Nine Network. The series was commissioned in late 2011 following the popularity of the first celebrity season, and will be the third edition of The Apprentice Australia overall. The official cast was announced in January 2012, with filming beginning on 15 January 2012. Mark Bouris returned as CEO, with his son Dane replacing Brad Seymour as boardroom advisor, alongside Deborah Thomas. TV personality Ian "Dicko" Dickson was the celebrity winner, defeating reality star Nathan Jolliffe in the final boardroom.
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