Steve Price shows on Triple M and Listnr have been axed but he’s thankful for the memories

Media veteran Steve Price has had a 35-year radio career with many memorable moments but he’s been told his time’s up.

Steve Price’s radio show on Triple M has been cancelled but he insists there’s “no scandal” behind its axing. Picture: Mark Stewart

In a week where a media performer like Sydney’s Chris Smith being sacked for a drunken attack on his female colleagues made news, it might seem a strange time for me to reflect on my own career in radio.

It’s been a rollercoaster radio ride that’s lasted thirty-five years but ended on Friday – and not for any other reason than time’s up. No scandal here.

My national morning show on Southern Cross Austereo, broadcast regionally on Triple M and nationally on the Listnr app, won’t be coming back next year.

We loved doing it and 2021 and 2022 have been some of the most incredible news years ever – just think floods, Ukraine war, the Queen dying and Covid – but economics intervened, and we won’t be back.

2021 and 2022 were incredible news years ‘but economics intervened’ and Steve Price’s radio career has abruptly come to an end.

A podcast highlighting the news events we covered in 2022 can be heard on the Listnr app and some of what happened, and the resilience of Australians, is incredible.

Thirty-five years is a long time to have survived the cutthroat world of talkback radio and, mostly, I have enjoyed every minute of it. Mostly but not always.

Take December 4, 2003 – a Thursday. Anthony Mundine, the mouthy boxer from Sydney, won a WBA super middleweight title at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

As an invited guest I had ringside seats, but it was what happened on the way to that fight that sears it into my radio career memories. I was sacked from presenting the breakfast show on Sydney’s Radio 2UE.

Like being punched by Mundine, I was floored. I didn’t see it coming and, indeed, I was summonsed to the Sheraton on the Park hotel on the way to the fight.

Eighteen months after dragging my family out of Melbourne and confidently thinking I could replace the legendary Alan Jones – who had swapped stations – I was punted and moved to the drive shift.

To make the demotion even worse, the great John Laws had obviously been tipped off that I was out of breakfast and made a beeline for me ringside for a staged hug for the cameras. Not my favourite fight night.

Bruised ego doesn’t begin to describe it. That’s the dangerous world of radio ratings and station politics – and seriously, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Radio for me started in November 1987, leaving newspapers to become a producer for Neil Mitchell on 3AW starting a few weeks before the Queen St massacre saw nine people die, including killer Frank Vitkovic. That was 35 years ago this month.

Quite the initiation, especially in the days before mobile phones.

Over 35 years Price hosted radio programs on 3AW, 2UE, MTR, 2GB and until Friday, SCA on the regional Triple M network. Picture: Mark Stewart

By 1996 I was on air at AW presenting the drive program – two hours of aggressive campaigning and rolling news. It was the most satisfying, sometimes fun, sometimes tragic time I’ve had in radio covering events like the Port Arthur massacre and September 11 terror attacks.

On the night of September 11 I was snapped on a speed camera heading into the 3AW studios through the Domain tunnel for a marathon 14 hours live on air as we all thought the world was about to end.

We even had a 3AW talkback caller ring from New York to describe what he was seeing because, as he said, he just needed to talk to someone and it was our number he called.

Live radio is just about as exciting as it gets in the media – never knowing what’s around the corner and trying to hold politicians, especially, to account.

My style back then was perhaps a little too in-your-face. So much so that the great Mark Knight, who illustrates this page every Saturday, once drew me as a snarling bulldog – studded collar and all.

If I thought Melbourne radio was aggressive, nothing prepared me for the Sydney viper’s nest that was talkback radio in NSW.

Working with Alan Jones, John Laws and Ray Hadley was on another level.

Taking over the John Laws program and his legendary national audience networked around the nation when he retired was a dream come true.

Long lunches with Laws were as legendary as the man himself – the King of Sydney radio and the best voice to ever be heard on Australian radio bar none.

In the 35 years I’ve hosted programs on 3AW, 2UE, MTR, 2GB and, until Friday, SCA on the regional Triple M network.

That’s five different stations across three networks and it’s going to be hard next year to not have that microphone because it’s a tremendous gift.

Price says he’ll find it hard next year to not have a microphone in front of him ‘because it’s a tremendous gift’. Picture: Mark Stewart

Steve Price at his former Austereo radio work station. Picture: Mark Stewart

I’ve done the graveyard shift at night nationally, rating number one in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne for the one and only time. Breakfast radio in Melbourne and Sydney, afternoons in Sydney, drive in Melbourne and Sydney and pretty much everything in between.

Jeff Kennett once playfully slapped me across the face. I’ve had an AFL chief executive so angrily shouting at me his spit was running down my face.

During one election campaign the then-new One Nation leader Pauline Hanson forgot to hang up the phone after a live on-air chat so we put her comments to air.

She sued.

Rex Hunt was once so angry on a Friday night sports segment on 3AW with what Sam Newman said about him that Rex stormed out of the studio leaving me to host the Fishing Show – hilarious!

The Black Saturday bushfire coverage and the 2019 fires brought out the best in Aussies as people came together to help those who had lost everything. This year the same thing happened with the floods.

I’ll continue to campaign from the sensible middle and as the Victorian tate election showed, with an ordinary opposition you get no change.

Radio might be done but with this voice in the Herald Sun and on TV we can continue to make a difference. See you in 2023.