How Sam Pang became TV’s most likeable host

He makes it look easy. Sam Pang might be delivering delightfully deadpan quips on Ten’s comic quiz show, Have You Been Paying Attention? Or ribbing his co-hosts and a bouncy parade of AFL greats on Seven’s sports panel show, The Front Bar. Or donning a tux – for the first time in his life – to host the Logies. Until his triumph last year, that was a gig widely regarded as a poisoned chalice given its damaging impact on some previous MCs. But to whatever he does, Pang brings an affable, relaxed quality, as if he’s cruising, not taking any of it too seriously.

But none of it is actually easy. It takes work: spot-on timing and astute judgment of tone; the ability to be cheeky and droll without getting nasty. A mastery of the pause-for-effect after delivering a gag. Quick wit and the capacity to land a killer ad-lib.

Part of the trick is making it appear easy, even if the generally publicity-averse performer makes it sound as if it’s no big deal. In Pang’s genuinely humble and reflexively self-deprecating estimation, he’s just lucky to be able to have fun with his friends and to build a career in an industry that he loves.

The Logies role, which he’s set to take on again, means that he has to talk about himself and his work more than he’d like. For this high-profile assignment, he’s in the spotlight on his own, initially for the crucial monologue which ideally warms the room, gets the assembled audience onside and establishes an upbeat mood for the proceedings.

Pang says that, for someone accustomed to being a team player, the solo challenge was part of the appeal. “Anytime people see me on TV, I’m part of a team, which is wonderful. On both of the shows I’m on, when things go wrong, there are others to back me up. With HYBPA? I’ve got Tommy Gleisner and Ed (Kavalee) and three others; on Front Bar, I’ve got Mick (Molloy) and Andy (Maher). With the Logies, I’m not sitting on a panel: it’s about, ‘Can you do something on your own?’ It’s the same as stand-up, it’s that muscle, it’s exciting. I wanted to see if I could do it.”

Despite the flak that Australian television’s “night of nights” can cop – that it’s hokey, ridiculously long, a fan-magazine promotion – Pang sees its value: “You get to celebrate achievement in this industry that we’re lucky to be a part of. That doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun with it. We’re coming together, we’re celebrating and there are going to be jokes.”

Pang’s hosting debut came in a year marked by changes. The ceremony returned to Sydney after 37 years and to Seven for the first time since 1995. It hadn’t had an MC since 2012, relying instead on a roster of presenters. And it was the first time in its 63-year history that it was hosted by a non-white male. In customary style, Pang, who has Chinese heritage, had some fun with that, noting in the monologue that he’s “half and half, half Channel Seven and half Channel Ten”, then pausing to add, “Let’s be honest, it’s just great to have an Asian on Channel Seven who isn’t trying to smuggle live birds through border security.”

However, the Logies role means he’s less able to dodge the publicity duties he’s deftly avoided elsewhere. For his seven years on breakfast radio at Nova on Chrissie, Sam and Browny, he says, “Chrissie Swan and Jonathan Brown were happy to do the publicity, and if I don’t have to do it, I don’t. People would say, ‘You’re very private,’ but I’m going, ‘I think you get enough of me.’” With TV work, he says, “I’m lucky because at Front Bar, Mick and Andy do that stuff and with HYBPA? Tom and Ed are happy to do things. What else am I going to add?”