Alan Jones’ ‘captain’ John Singleton urges top performer to recover and return to work

RADIO legend John Singleton has spent recent months peppering his biggest star Alan Jones with expletives — but it’s out of love, not anger.

Alan Jones has again had to push back his return to the microphone.

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• Hadley steps in to cover breakfast slot

THE prospect of a radio station without its biggest star is a nightmare proposition. So it’s understandable a concerned Macquarie Radio Network director John Singleton has spent recent months peppering his biggest star Alan Jones with expletives.

“Words I daren’t repeat,” veteran broadcaster Jones said on his release from
St Vincent’s Private Hospital after his latest surgical procedure, his fourth
in four months.

It’s not that Singleton is angry his breakfast star hasn’t made it off the blocks for 2017 and is convalescing following repeated surgeries on his back and neck, Jones insists.

Ray Hadley, John Singleton and Alan Jones at 2GB in Pyrmont, celebrating 100 consecutive radio ratings wins. Picture: James Croucher

“It’s just the way he talks,” Jones said.

“The way he shows his regard,” he said, likening Singleton to an attentive “captain” and himself to an injured rugby union player who has been ordered not to step back onto the playing field until he is “match fit”.

A bad back has meant Jones hasn’t been “match fit” for a year but he hopes finally, after being forced to abort his third and latest planned return that would have had him back on air tomorrow, to be back picking fights with politicians by the end of the month.

It’s a delay that is said to be troubling his Macquarie bosses who were quick to deny industry rumours that ad revenue at 2GB had dropped in Jones’s absence.

Jones has heard the talk too — that advertisers loyal to him have held off buying spots on the station until he returns, whenever that may be — and also grumblings from within 2GB that morale at the station has declined during his absence.

The 76-year-old could easily retire to one of his handsome properties but has no intention of doing so. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“Alan brings an energy to the station every day he comes in,” offered one 2GB staffer. “He engages with people personally and because he’s a natural motivator he can’t help but give everyone he sees a lift.

“He’s a legend, you know. It’s something others can’t begin to emulate.”

Jones has been missing from the corridors of 2GB since November when he was forced to attend to a dislodged disc in his back.

After repeated surgeries on his neck to deal with lingering nerve pain, Jones went under the knife again on February 24 to have “ugly” fluid drained from his feet and legs.

“(The fluid) was bloody significant and I got a bit frightened,” he said hours after being discharged from hospital on Friday, after a week-long stay, to his luxury apartment in Circular Quay’s Toaster building.

John Singleton has been giving his old buddy Jones “pep talks”. Picture: Mark Scott

His legs are much improved. “I’ll soon have ankles like Jennifer Hawkins. I just need the high heels and stockings to match,” he said, brightening unexpectedly.

At 76, Jones will simply not abide talk of retiring.

The multi-millionaire, who is headed to his farm at Sutton Forest in the Southern Highlands this week to rest on doctor’s orders, could easily afford to call it quits and enjoy living out his remaining years at one of his magnificent properties which include a dairy farm in southeastern Queensland.

Hadley faces his greatest opposition to this plan from Jones himself, who is known not to be a fan.

But Jones doesn’t relish the idea of being out of work, his main “passion”, and clearly it’s not something that appeals to his bosses either. They hope the ratings-winning powerbroker will honour a promise to them last November to continue working for another 25 years.

Radio executives deny Singleton has been entertaining plans to have Jones dial back his workload in the longest and most lucrative shift on weekday daytime radio by prerecording segments and interviews which might then be edited into packages along with live news commentary.

Ben Fordham could be a challenger.

Ray Hadley is hotly tipped to replace Jones when he retires.

“Mr 17 Percent”, a figure that represents his peak audience in the 2GB morning show slot, Hadley stepped into Jones’s shoes and show slot in February and is currently working a monster shift, from 5.30am to 11am, each weekday.

It’s a move insiders say clearly shows station owner John Singleton’s future plan for Hadley.

Hadley faces his greatest opposition to this plan from Jones himself, who is known not to be a fan.

When he vacated his breakfast show in November to have surgery on a chronic back condition, Jones picked 2GB afternoon show host Chris Smith to keep his
seat warm.

Ray Hadley is tipped to take over the Jones slot at some point. Picture: James Croucher

Smith proved himself to have a similar range of interests to Jones and the commentator hardly missed a step, and giving Jones’s audience what it has become accustomed to — mix of politics, sport, civic and lifestyle commentary.

Another challenger for the prime spot could be Ben Fordham.

The youngest in the 2GB daytime line-up and host of the drive program, Fordham has largely modelled himself on radio legend Jones.

As a result he has mostly had the backing of the veteran broadcaster, though not the backing of Hadley, who is rumoured to have been critical of the younger man’s style.

Due to his role on the Nine Network Today show, Fordham enjoys a higher profile than does Smith and could appeal to a younger audience.

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But Jones is in no hurry to give up his show.

“Alan is a powerhouse,” one 2GB executive said. “He won’t want to lighten his load.”

Even if it means getting him back on air sooner?

“Even then.”

Jones did, on a weekly basis in 2016, record his show from a studio at his Sutton Forest property.

It’s one of the few concessions he is willing
to make.

“I think it’s best not to be half-pregnant,” he said.

“I could in fact ring through and do some stuff each morning but what I think I really need to do is go hammer and tongs now.”

As one of Macquarie and 2GB’s biggest shareholders, Jones has some 2,166,668 reasons to push himself hard after a year of chronic ill health.

That figure equates to the number of shares he owns in Macquarie, a shareholding that represents 1.27 per cent of the business.

His love for that business will spur him next into the hard, mundane work of rehabilitation that awaits him if the rest of his problematic recovery goes to plan.

The first thing he must do, as an outpatient at Woollahra’s Wolper rehab hospital, is learn to walk again after surgeons ordered him in February to remain immobile so his surgical wounds could heal.

He knows it will be hard. He is three months behind on his rehabilitation.

“I’m very, very weak,” he said.

“That’s my only problem. Everything else is terrific. I need to be able to walk a couple of hundred metres, but hopefully (having done that), this will be the last innings.”