Sydney’s overnight talk radio changes: Jim Ball to 2GB and Mike Jeffreys to 2UE
March 18th, 2010 at 05:02pm
As has been reported in a number of places, Jim Ball is moving to 2GB, having quit 2UE rather suddenly last week. He is expected to start on Monday and will be networked to Macquarie’s new Melbourne station 3MTR as of mid-May if all goes to plan. Jock’s Journal are claiming that Jim will be on air from 12am to 3am, and Andrew Moore’s Wake Up Sydney (which has been curiously referred to as Wake Up Australia on-air) will be extended by half an hour, starting at 3am instead of 3:30 and will finish at its normal time of 5am. This runs counter to what I am hearing, that Andrew’s show will not change length, but may be networked to Melbourne along with Jim’s show.
Taking Jim’s place on 2UE according to my information will be Mike Jeffreys, former 2CC Breakfast host. He will be on-air from Midnight to 5:30am daily, and ironically will be heard on 2CC for longer than his old breakfast show each day. I have no idea if he’ll take Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life with him as his theme music (although I hope he does) and I also don’t know if any of his old regular correspondents will resurface on his new show, although again, I hope that they do. Trudy Thiele and Donna Stanley were highlights of the week for me and would be good to hear them again.
This does all pose a very serious problem for me though as I now have three different stations to potentially listen to at this time of the night. 2GB’s webstream for Jim Ball, 2CC taking Mike Jeffreys’ show and KXNT with Alan Stock and Rush Limbaugh. There is such a thing as too much choice after all.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: TV/Radio/Media
2 Comments
1. woden56 | March 18th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Really glad to hear Mike Jeffreys will be back on air in Sydney but that still leaves me with a diffiicult choice each night…..I’ve been jumping back & forth between Jim’s show & David Oldfield on 2GB[who I feel has done an excellent job over the last year or 2] so it looks like that will still be the the pattern for me at least. I hope 2GB will find somewhere to use David in the on-air line-up – with any luck Chris Smith might be despatched to Melbourne permanently!! I hear there might be an opening down there? [If my memory is right it was about the time that Alan Jones came over from 2UE & the arrival of the annoying Chris Smith that we lost Mike Jeffreys to you guys in Canberra so if David got the afternoon shift everything would be just perfect!
2. Samuel | March 18th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
I’m pretty sure that Mike came to Canberra in 2002..or possibly 2003. He started on Drive down here and then moved to Breakfast and I think he moved after Mike Welsh arrived in 2003…but I wasn’t quite as avid a listener back then so I can’t be entirely sure on that.
There has been speculation about the 3MTR lineup and I was actually convinced that Mike was headed down there. The latest speculation seems to be that Chris Smith’s show will be networked to Melbourne. I can’t see it happening though as it would ruin 3MTR’s attempt to appear to be a Melbourne station…maybe he’ll move down there, but I can’t see it happening while he’s holding ratings. Maybe Oldfield will go to Melbourne…who knows, but 2GB/3MTR must have something planned in order to lure Jim Ball back after his spectacular departure a couple years back.
I doubt that Macquarie will let David go so I suspect that he’ll end up in Melbourne, but that shouldn’t stop him from filling in on Sydney shows remotely. The non-Breakfast Melbourne lineup is still a closely guarded secret, so watch this space!