2GB radio host Alan Jones ready for other job offers, friends claim

Friends of 2GB radio breakfast host Alan Jones claim he no longer cares if the offer of a new contract materialises from long-time boss John Singleton as he is ready to field offers of work from other interested parties.

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He has dominated the nation’s airwaves for 30 years and is widely regarded as radio’s most powerful commentator but Alan Jones’s diary is empty from June 30 and he is ready to field offers of work from interested parties.

Or so say friends of the breakfast show star who claim Jones no longer cares if the offer of a new contract materialises from long-time boss John Singleton, the media boss he once publicly acknowledged as a mate.

Will radio host Alan Jones leave 2GB? Picture: AAP/Dan Peled

“It’s not as though he doesn’t have options,” sources close to Jones said last week.

“He has contracts with Sky and Seven, and Seven owner Kerry Stokes has talked of buying a radio frequency and building a station around him,” they claimed.

“Alan would love to go head-to-head against the man expected to take over from him in the 2GB breakfast slot, Ray Hadley. He would relish it.”

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A spokesman for Seven ­chairman Mr Stokes denied the businessman was preparing to buy a radio frequency.

“That’s bullshit,” he said.

2gb boss John Singleton with Ray Hadley and Alan Jones. Picture: Bob Finlayson

Having waited months for radio executives to reopen contract negotiations at the radio station he partly owns, an insulted Jones is now counting the days until he is free to ­explore new opportunities, his associate said.

Privately, Jones has been openly critical of a number of unprofitable decisions made by the board of Macquarie Media — now majority owned by media company Nine — in recent years.

Jones, 78, refused to comment when approached by The Sunday Telegraph at a social event last week saying he was in a “30-day nondisclosure period” with 2GB.