After much speculation about Neil Mitchell’s future, on Friday the media veteran finally made it official that he would be departing his top-ratings mornings’ program after 36 years behind the microphone and 219 radio survey wins.
Within minutes of the 3AW veteran taking to the airwaves to announce the news, the distress was evident among his listeners – some of those phoning in even shed tears.
But then one of the biggest radio names in the nation’s history decided it would be a grand idea to call Mitchell and kill the mood … none other than Golden Tonsils, John Laws.
What started out as banter between the pair turned sour very quickly when Laws, 88, who sounded like he was standing on the platform of a train station with horns bellowing in the background, decided to have a crack at Mitchell live on air.
“I don’t like you very much,” he told the 71-year radio host.
Mitchell was having none of it, telling Laws, “well you haven’t met me”.
But according to Laws, who has his own radio show on 2SM, he had in fact met Mitchell.
“I have met you … you weren’t very nice when I met you,” he said.
“You’ve never been very nice to me, let’s not go into it, it’s a very sad story.”
Before Mitchell decided to wrap up what was an excruciating few minutes of radio, Laws signed off by saying: “I want to wish you good luck.”
When Diary spoke to Mitchell on Sunday about the awkward exchange, he said it was a “sad” case of Laws inserting himself into the news of his radio departure.
Mitchell said Laws’s producer called his producer to see if the radio veteran could come on 3AW and wish him well.
“I thought it was a bit sad in the end, it wasn’t a time to fight and carry on and he seemed to want to be sniping at me,” he said.
“I just wasn’t in the mood for that, I wasn’t going to engage, I’ve had fights with him on air before.
“He said I’ve met him, but I don’t remember meeting him, anyway, maybe he’s right.”
Despite the sledge, Mitchell wasn’t going to swipe back.
“John has developed talk radio in this country, he’s been an influence on the whole industry and it was just so sad to misread the moment,” he said.
Mitchell said he had been inundated by hundreds of messages of support since announcing he was leaving his program, including from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and none other than the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews.
Mitchell said the exchange with the Premier was “pleasant” and his good wishes came despite Mr Andrews refusing to appear on Mitchell’s show over the past six years.
3AW announces new line-up
Melbourne’s 3AW has announced its new line up for 2024 with Tom Elliott, the station’s drive host, replacing Mitchell on his mornings program.
Elliott began his radio career on 3RR in 1993 and has been the station’s drive host over the past 10 years, dominating in the timeslot.
He revealed the news - which has been Melbourne radio’s worst-kept secret - on Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft’s breakfast program on Monday morning.
3AW’s new (iconic) 2023 line up pic.twitter.com/SNQOlrrIke
— Emilia Fuller (@EmiliaFuller_) September 3, 2023
Elliott told listeners his show would be different to Mitchell’s top-rating program.
“I’m a different person to Neil, anybody who listens to me on drive knows that I do a different type of show, but it will be breaking news, opinion, interviews,” he said.
“It will be my show, I’m not going to do Neil’s show as Tom, it’s going to be Tom’s show.”
The station will have a big shake up of its key weekday radio programs and includes Jacqui Felgate taking over Elliott in the drive slot.
Felgate, who left Channel 7 in 2022, started at the station doing food reviews on the 3AW breakfast program and has a rapid climb to be taking on her own show in 2024.
She is known for her prolific Instagram posts spruiking products and brands and she provided many Covid updates during the pandemic lockdowns.
Tony Moclair will be the new host of the afternoons slot and he takes over from Dee Dee Dunleavy who was axed by the station after her contract was not renewed despite her strong ratings.
Moclair moves across from his Australia Overnight show to take on the afternoons slot.
All these changes will begin in 2024.
Grant’s omission
It’s hardly a normal day without Stan Grant lashing out at his former employer – in fact he’s blasted the ABC on so many occasions since the fallout from the King’s coronation coverage that it’s hard to keep count.
One of his latest outbursts was in a 415-word LinkedIn post that he uploaded to the online professional news website after an exclusive story published in The Australian last week.
The story revealed that he was involved in an argument with a female colleague in Ultimo’s foyer.
No better place to have a spat.
Grant declared in the lengthy post that the real reason behind packing his bags from Ultimo was because “trust is broken”.
But it appears not all love is lost between Grant and the ABC.
Someone inside the walls of the taxpayer-funded organisation has been busy updating Grant’s online biography to include a long list of all the world leaders he’s interviewed throughout his career, including Nelson Mandela, Hillary Clinton, Yasser Arafat, Bill Clinton and former Australian prime ministers Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
But, curiously, the bio – which was updated just days after Grant chose the Canberra Writers Festival as the perfect place to attack his former program, Q+A – makes no mention of the show.
A glaring omission given that was his main role at the ABC before he packed his bags.
When Grant was appointed full-time to the role, ABC news boss Justin Stevens said, “leading Q+A is a role that suits the breadth of his (Grant’s) knowledge and talents”.
“With Stan at the helm, we’ll continue to explore ways to further develop Q+A, including how to get audiences even more involved,” Stevens said.
Well that hasn’t ended well, either: the show has battled falling ratings and even dumped key audience engagement, that is, on Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, platform, before abandoning it all together.
Grant’s glowing bio also makes no mention of his new role at Monash University at the Constructive Institute, where his passion is to “change news culture for the better”.
Morris’s loud voice
What better way to test the public sentiment on the voice debate than to insert Ten’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here host Julia Morris into the mix?
The reality TV show presenter and comedian chose social media to make public that she was fully supporting the upcoming voice to parliament referendum.
Probably thinking Instagram was a relatively safe space in which to air her views to her 300,000 followers, Morris posted a selfie with a wrap-around headline that read: “I’m voting Yes! For a voice to parliament”
It must have been a rude shock when the comments started flooding in.
The post to date has attracted nearly 1500 of them and it’s fair to say a chunk of Morris’s followers let her know exactly how they feel about a celebrity – who probably now wants to have a self-imposed social-media detox – from sharing her views on this controversial debate.
Furious followers of Morris posted their disgust that she was going to vote Yes, including one disgruntled fan, who wrote: “I’ll be voting no, and now I’ll be unfollowing yourself due (to) this utter nonsense.”
Another wrote: “Bye bye … the fact you are even involved in the propaganda saddens me. That’s a vote for unfollowing Julia Morris.”
Angry comments kept coming thick and fast, with another writing, “how long before comments are restricted and turned off completely?”.
But thankfully for the Channel 10 host, she had some support, with some followers announcing they, too, would absolutely be voting Yes on October 14.
When Morris was contacted by Diary on Sunday, let’s just say she wouldn’t be drawn on the subject, in fact, she was far from impressed.
Voice confusion
The pro-voice camp would have been very pleased with themselves on Sunday morning, waking up with headlines splashed across the front pages of the nation’s papers to reveal that music legend John Farnham’s hit song, You’re the Voice, would be used to help get voters across the line in the upcoming referendum.
The advertising campaign blitz by the Yes camp will include the 1986 hit and is arguably a very clever move to pitch for support from the large cohort of undecided voters.
But Opposition Leader and No campaigner Peter Dutton wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to, er, support the Yes camp’s move. Yes, you read correctly, Dutton thought the song was the perfect choice to sell the voice.
During an appearance on Sky News Australia’s Sunday Agenda, the Liberal leader was asked by political editor Andrew Clennell what he made of Farnham getting involved.
“In a sense it’s the appropriate theme song for the Yes campaign, because if you remember that the key line in the lyrics there is, ‘You’re the voice, try and understand it’.
“I don’t want to sing, I don’t want to break into verse with you here, Andrew, but I honestly don’t think most Australians understand it and they want to be informed”.
Not a bad point by the Opposition Leader, given many Australians remain confused about what the voice actually is, with some even thinking that it’s all about the hit TV reality program.
A two-minute advertisement – one of the first major ads to be released by either the Yes or No camp – will include Farnham’s No.1 hit.
But perhaps the voice architects didn’t take the time to examine the lyrics clearly, because it may come back to bite them, using words that are undoubtedly resonating with many Australians.
Farnham told the media that the “song changed my life”.
“I can only hope that now it might help, in some small way, to change the lives of our First Nations peoples for the better.”
Sales pitch
Just five days after former TV current affairs host Leigh Sales penned an email to her ABC colleagues, giving them handy tactics on how to shut down any “inaccurate” claims that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is longer than one page, she popped up on Ten’s The Project to declare that she doesn’t take positions in debate.
In a remarkable turn of events, Sales, who has been doing the media rounds and spruiking her latest book about journalism, sat down with The Project co-host Waleed Aly to tell viewers that anyone who knows her well, “would see that I’m not taking a position on anything”.
Not quite sure how Sales can then back this up after telling ABC staff that the Uluru statement is a single-page document.
Even her colleague, ABC Media Watch host Paul Barry has said Sky News host Peta Credlin’s reporting on the Uluru statement has some fair points, including that it is more than one page and it’s fair to say its length is “disputed”.
But that aside, somehow Sales thinks she doesn’t take positions on anything. The former 7.30 host whose on-air duties require a one-minute introduction to Australian Story each week, told Aly, if you, “want to be a journalist, you have to leave your opinions at the door”.
Sales said journalists can be at risk of allowing “this kind of bias” to infect their “open-mindedness” in reporting.
But if you follow Sales’ instructions to staff regarding the length of the Uluru statement, with her telling them how to reject any claims it is longer than a page, opinions or conflicting views are not always welcome at the ABC.
“The best way to move on from something like this is to go to your next question,” she told ABC employees.
Aly asked Sales what it is that makes people lose trust in the media, to which she replied: “At times, we pretend we’re objective but information comes out and the whole story wasn’t told.
“There’s so much misinformation out there.”
When Sales popped up on Nine’s Today show on Friday, host Karl Stefanovic asked her what she had been busy doing since calling it quits from hosting 7.30.
“I’m trying to decouple myself from the news cycle after 30 years, which has been great actually, I’m hosting Australian Story, I’ve got a podcast that is about to come out that I’m doing with my very good friend, Lisa Millar,” she said.
“Then I just do bits and pieces for ABC news.”
Diary reached out to Sales but didn’t hear back.
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