Alan Jones to quit 2GB radio show, Scott Morrison weighs in, Ben Fordham to take over

Alan Jones says a threat by his doctor that he could drop dead ‘walking down the street’ prompted his retirement from radio.

Alan Jones during his radio show from the Southport Yacht Club. Picture: Glenn Hampson

“If you don’t stop, you’ll drop.” They are the words that 2GB’s breakfast king Alan Jones maintains ended the most storied career in Australian radio.

In an interview with The Australian’s Media Diary yesterday from his home in the NSW Southern Highlands, after a day of high drama, Jones, 79, says a threat by his doctor that he could drop dead “walking down the street” that was the final straw in prompting the man who could make or break Prime Ministers, Premiers and CEOs to walk away from radio.

Asked for the exact diagnosis he was given by his doctor, Jones replied: “I don’t want to dramatise this, but he said to me: ‘If you don’t stop, you’ll drop. There’ll come a time that your system will say it’s too late. You might be walking down the street when it happens.’”

But Jones’s doctors weren’t the only ones in conversations with the 2GB breakfast king. It was a dialogue with Nine bosses in recent times that ultimately facilitated Tuesday’s bombshell departure by Jones, 13 months ahead of the expiry of his contract.

Media Diary understands that the departing breakfast king will face no financial penalty from 2GB’s owner Nine for quitting his $4 million a year, two-year contract early under the terms of a deal hammered out between the two parties.

It is understood he now faces only one key caveat: that he will be locked down by Nine until the end of June next year from joining any radio venture that competes in any way with 2GB, or any other station in the Nine radio network around Australia.

Nine will, however, allow Jones to continue to host his two weekly 8PM shows on Sky, Jones & Credlin and Richo & Jones, and write his weekly columns for The Australian and The Daily Telegraph, under the terms of the agreement the two parties hammered out.

In his interview with Media Diary, Jones was in a reflective mood _ from a rare admission that at times he could be “overly argumentative”, to an emotional lament about the loss of his 2GB radio audience, almost as if he had lost a family member.

“If you’re to be successful in radio, the audience are your family,” he said. “It’s hard for them and it’s hard for me. I feel guilty I’m letting them down (he pauses at this point). The next two weeks are going to be a transition, to help ease that burden.”

He also lamented the loss of his other “family”, his nine-member production team, which collectively has been with him for more than 140 years, led by executive producer Paul Christenson, a 30-year veteran of his radio show.

But Jones said it was simply time to move on. “People have no idea what goes on here. The 2.30AM starts are only the beginning. I’ve got staff waiting for a debrief right now. Then I’ve got a bundle of correspondence to sign and to answer. Then I’ve got to put a TV program together. After that, I’ll take 20 minutes for a feed – then I’ve got a radio program tomorrow.”

Ben Fordham in the Macquarie Media radio studios in Sydney. Picture: John Feder

As for his 2GB successor, Ben Fordham, Jones said there was “no reason” why he shouldn’t succeed. But he had one word of warning: it’s not as easy as it looks. “In his current slot, you come to work at 9AM for breakfast, and you’ve still got six hours to put together a program. But in breakfast radio, the earliest you can get your staff in is 4. That’s one and a half hours to put together a program. That’s something he’s talked to me about already.

“Ben’s instincts are good. But you’ve got to do the work and put everything in place. It’s a different challenge.”

But before you start talking about Fordham, don’t write Jones off just yet. The man himself says he will be freer than ever to speak his mind, this time on his TV gigs on Sky. “I’ll be standing up for things that have to be defended, and I’ll be prosecuting those arguments that have to be prosecuted. No-one’s completely free but I now have channels.”

Pollies, you have been warned.