Former television and radio broadcaster Richard Zachariah has died just months after his former partner Maggie Tabberer.

Veteran broadcaster and writer Richard Zachariah, best known for The Home Show and 11AM, has died aged 80.

Zachariah passed away on Wednesday, just four months after the death of his former partner and co-host Maggie Tabberer, a trailblazing fashion icon and television personality.

The two were in a high-profile relationship for a decade, from 1985 to 1995, and co-hosted The Home Show on ABC in the early ’90s.

TV hosts Richard Zachariah and Maggie Tabberer at Foxtel Cable PayTV launch in Sydney on October 23, 1995. Picture: NCA
Tabberer died aged 87 on December 6, with her daughter Amanda confirming the news at the time.

Zachariah’s journalism career began in 1964 at The Age before he moved to the BBC.

His work took him across Australia and the UK, and he contributed columns to The Sunday Telegraph, The Australian, and Fairfax Rural Press, while also working across radio and publishing multiple books.

By 1986, he had joined the Seven Network to host the national morning news program 11AM, and later co-anchored Seven Nightly News in Sydney alongside Ann Sanders.

TV hosts Maggie Tabberer and Richard Zachariah from TV show ‘Homeshow’. Picture: ABC-TV
Away from the spotlight, Zachariah spent over two decades living in rural Australia, managing a beef and dairy property in East Gippsland, Victoria.

His love for the land was reflected in his 2017 book The Vanished Land: Disappearing Dynasties of Victoria’s Western District, which explored the transformation of what he described as “the centre of power in this country.”

Speaking to ABC Radio Melbourne’s The Conversation Hour in 2017, he recalled falling in love with the Western District.

“I was gone and hooked and I still am,” he said.

“I’ve just got goosebumps talking about it.”

Author Richard Zachariah at the launch of his book The Vanished Land at the property of Allan Myers QC, Mount Sturgeon, Dunkeld. Picture: Kate Dowler NCA
He also penned Zachariah, a book that candidly detailed his decade-long relationship with Tabberer and their life in the public eye.

In more recent years, Zachariah is understood to have lived in the Adelaide Hills with his partner Sarah.

Publisher Wakefield Press remembered him as a “lifelong racing fanatic”.

A funeral will be held at the Eastern Park Chapel in Warrnambool, Victoria, on April 23.

“A colourful character, respected journalist and writer, and lover of life,” his funeral notice read.

“Always remembered.”