Tom Ballard

Early life

Ballard was born to parents Judy and Neil Ballard and grew up in Warrnambool, Victoria. He attended Brauer College Warrnambool, graduating in 2007 where he was dux with an ENTER of 99.80, and was consequently named as the dux of the South West Region. He then briefly studied law at Monash University.

He was also awarded the VCAA's VCE Achiever's Award for December 2007. Among reasons he was given this award were cited as winning VCAA's Plain English Speaking Award as well his work within the school and local youth communities and activism on topics such as homophobia and cyberbullying.

Stand-up comedy

He was a three-time Class Clowns National Finalist and a Raw Comedy National Finalist by 2006. He performed in Upwey, Warburton, Healesville and Lilydale as part of the Young Blood Comedy Tour in 2007 and was a guest entertainer in the 2007 Melbourne Comedy Festival's Eskimo Jokes show.

He was one quarter of The Comedy Zone at the 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Radio

Ballard was a presenter for Warrnambool's 3WAY FM community radio station with Alex Dyson. On the strength of his Raw Comedy performance, Ballard was given the chance to develop some demos with Australian youth radio station Triple J and, along with Dyson, was given regular Mid-Dawn (1am to 6 am) shifts.

In December 2008, Ballard and Dyson were the presenters for the weekday summer lunch slot (10 am to 2 pm) and in 2009 moved to the weekend breakfast slot. On 23 November 2009, Triple J announced that Ballard and Dyson would take over as hosts of the 2010 Breakfast show.

In November 2013, Ballard resigned from Triple J after 7 years with the station to focus on his stand-up comedy.

Television

In 2014, Ballard hosted Reality Check, a panel discussion program about reality television. In 2015, he hosted the 18 June and 26 October episodes of Q&A.

In 2016 Ballard was cast in the second season of SBS TV series First Contact.

Personal life

Ballard is openly gay and previously dated comedian Josh Thomas.