Steve Price: Losing Neil Mitchell, the voice of 3AW, spells doom for the station

The notion that you reach your use-by date at a certain age on radio is garbage — but with reports Neil Mitchell’s reign is over, it seems 3AW wants to bring about its own slow decline.

Reports suggest that Neil Mitchell will walk away from his mornings show on 3AW to be replaced by Tom Elliott. Picture: David Geraghty

All golden eras come to an end eventually but 3AW seems to want to shoot Bambi and bring about their own slow decline.

As reported exclusively in the Herald Sun yesterday — and not denied by anyone from the Sydney management that now runs a once proudly Melbourne-managed station — Neil Mitchell’s reign at the top is over.

Reports suggest Mitchell will walk away from his No.1 Morning show at the end of the year to be replaced by colleague Tom Elliot with radio novice Jacqui Felgate taking over my old shift in Drive.

Insiders explain that the Nine network, who now own 3AW, is chasing a younger social media-savvy audience. The notion of that is so stupid to be laughable.

In the last ratings survey more than 30 per cent of their audience was older than 65 years old. Another 19 per cent were more than 55 years old, meaning half the audience is at or near retirement age.

Neil Mitchell and I go back a very long way. He left newspapers in the late 1980s and I joined him at 3AW as the producer of his Drive program in late 1987.

Neil is the voice of 3AW and has the work ethic of an ox. Picture: David Geraghty

3AW was struggling back then with poor on-air talent. It was tired and being beaten by music stations like 3MP.

At the end of 1989 3AW had its biggest shake-up in history – unlike this shuffling of the deckchairs – with the breakfast show replaced, the morning presenter shown the door and a new Drive host hired.

Neil Mitchell was promoted to the key Morning show starting at 8.30 and Ross Stevenson was poached from 3AK where he was part of the Lawyers-Guns and Money Saturday program.

Within 18 months we – I was the program director by then – went from the number six rated station in Melbourne to number 1.

Aside from the very occasional blip the two main morning programs Breakfast and Neil have been number one ever since. A remarkable 33 years at the top.

Steve Price, Alan Pearsall, Keith McGowan, Yvonne Lawrence, Neil Mitchell and Ernie Sigley at 3AW in 1997.

For anyone to suggest fiddling with that record is a smart idea might like to reflect when talking about “going younger” that the three stars of Nine radio in Australia are over 60.

Ross Stevenson is the most successful AM breakfast host since Alan Jones and is in his mid- sixties, Ray Hadley is my age 68 and Neil is a touch over 70 years-old.

This whole notion that you reach your use-by date at a certain age on radio is garbage. Successful talkback hosts work because they know where the bodies are buried and know who to talk to about the crime.

People like Neil are trusted guests in their audience’s homes and cars.

Neil is the voice of 3AW and has the work ethic of an ox. He is the only news breaker on the station and the TV newsrooms of Melbourne rely on Neil daily for the stories he breaks.

Melbourne and Sydney radio are very different beasts — as I well know having worked on air in both places. 3AW needs to be very careful thinking it can simply change the name on Neil’s office door and presume continued success.

Their only advantage is that sadly for Melbourne there is no competition.