The Ali Clarke Breakfast Show hits back after The Advertiser’s article: ‘The real reason I left the ABC’
‘Yeah, I get paid more’ Ali Clarke says of her move to Mix 102.3’s breakfast team. But she says that’s not the reason she left the ABC.
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Ali Clarke has hit back following Mix102.3’s rating slump, revealing the real reason she quit the ABC to join the FM station.
The Advertiser reported last week that Mix 102.3 used to be a winner in ratings but has dropped to 6th place in the latest radio ratings survey.
Clarke said the “falsehoods” in the story included that one of the reasons she left her former job at the ABC was for more money, and that she asked Mix for co-host Eddie Bannon to join her team.
She opened up about the “real” reasons she left ABC Radio Adelaide.
READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE
“I haven’t spoken much about that publicly because I didn’t think I had to go through it,” she said.
“Yes, I was rating number one at my previous work, but do you want to know what was really going on?
“I was waking up at one or two in the morning panicking, I was anxious, I would end a shift shaking, sometimes I would go into work feeling like I was throwing up because I was so stressed and even worse, I was taking all of that home with me.
“Yeah, I get paid more than I get there, but guess what, if this doesn’t work in the next two years and however many months I’ll be getting paid nothing, and I probably could’ve had a job for life at Aunty.”
Clarke said she had “no idea” Eddie Bannon had been approached for the job.”
“You got this job on your own merit and for anyone to suggest anything other than that is an absolute lie, it is false, and it is harmful, and you deserve to be here mate.”
The Ali Clarke Breakfast Show featuring comedian Eddie Bannon and Port Adelaide AFLW player Erin Phillips began at the start of 2022.
“I thought long and very very hard about how to deal with this (article), not because there was any criticism in it … because it was full of inaccuracies, it was full of falsehoods, there were omissions, and that all seemed incredibly unfair, that they could write something wrong and as a result seriously play around with people’s mental wellbeing,” Ali Clarke said on air on Monday morning.
“The problem is, when you’re the big boy, in this so called one paper town, you keep getting away with it, because people are too scared to call you out because of what you might write next.
“But the big part of it is, when what is being written is factually wrong, and has no other purpose than to titillate and get clicks … isn’t that a type of bullying?”
Clarke claimed The Advertiser did not approach her for a response on the article. However, The Advertiser contacted Mix prior and post-publication of the article.
Mix 102.3 declined to officially comment to The Advertiser.
“They hadn’t even bothered to ask me about any of it,” Clarke said.
Clarke left ABC 891 on a high at the end of 2021, with a dominant final survey almost five ratings points clear of second place.
Reportedly she leveraged those impressive results to move up to a large six-figure salary with Mix.
“Long-term underlying problems with management and the culture in place are starting to reflect in the ratings,” a source told The Advertiser regarding Mix’s decline in ratings over the years.
Read the original story in full, here.
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