Broadcaster Steve Price slams rival breakfast radio shows as he launches new program

Broadcaster Steve Price is returning to the airwaves and he’s hoping to put the heat on other longstanding radio breakfast programs.

Steve Price says of his new show: ‘I’ve got no illusion we are starting from a zero base audience. You would think we would grow that pretty quickly.’ Picture: Mark Stewart

Broadcaster Steve Price is making a radio comeback and is pledging to fill a gaping hole in the market — a radio show that serves a national audience.

The 66-year-old has a self-contained radio studio set up at his home on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, from where he will live-stream his new show, Australia Today with Steve Price, on the LiSTNR app. It will air from 7am to 10am on weekdays, starting this Wednesday.

The new program will go head-to-head with Nine’s popular breakfast and morning shows around the country, including those hosted by 2GB’s Ben Fordham and Ray Hadley, 3AW’s Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft, and Neil Mitchell, and 4BC’s Neil Breen.

But the Herald Sun columnist and The Projectcommentator admits he has an almighty task ahead of him, given he’s starting from scratch.

“I’ve got no illusion we are starting from a zero base audience, you would think we would grow that pretty quickly,” Price told The Australian.

The veteran broadcaster has lined up a strong stable of high-profile figures who will be regulars on his program, alongside former Network Ten newsreader Natarsha Belling who will be delivering news updates every half-hour.

Other well-known names featuring on the live-streamed show include former 3AW breakfast host John Burns, former defence minister Christopher Pyne, The Australian’s national restaurant critic John Lethlean, sports presenter Mark Howard and former Luxury Escapes head of tours Sonia Pilovska.

“I’m really happy that I have got myself back on radio and with a national audience,” Price said.

“I’m with a network that owns more than 60 radio stations around the country with huge assets both in terms of news and their podcasts LiSTNR.”

Price said he had been in discussion with Southern Cross Austereo’s chief executive officer Grant Blackley about the planned talkback program since 2018.

Price also points to his strong social media presence that includes 10,500 Instagram followers and more than 30,000 Twitter followers.

But Price said the big difference with his show was that it filled the “no show with a national audience” void.

“Given what Australian went through in 2020 and the current news recipe that’s out there, you need a national look at these big issues, whether it be COVID-19, vaccination rollout or border closures, or the behaviour in Parliament House,” he said.

“The current radio offering is not having a national conversation, so when I go on air at 7am and there’s a border closure in Queensland I’m talking to the tour operators in Port Douglas who have gone broke again.

“I’m talking to someone on the way to the airport in Melbourne who is thinking ‘maybe I shouldn’t get on the plane’. National conversations are very important.” Price said his show would be filled with “common sense opinion”.

“Everything I will talk about will have an opinion attached to it,” he said.

“I’m not a right-wing shock jock, I’m not a conservative or a born-again leftie.

“I’m just someone who will talk common sense.”

Originally published as Broadcaster Steve Price slams rival breakfast radio shows as he launches new program