2UE’s John Kerr is retiring
December 1st, 2012 at 01:10am
On his 2UE show this morning, John Kerr announced his retirement from radio after 55 years on the air, 18 of which have been on the overnight shift at 2UE, first on weekdays and now on weekends. John made a private announcement to a select number of his biggest fans at a listener lunch in Sydney yesterday afternoon.
John will stay on the air until the Australia Day weekend. At this stage it is believed that his final show will be on the morning of Sunday the 27th of January, 2013.
John’s departure from 2UE has been rumoured for some time, especially since the weekday edition of the overnight show has been networked from Melbourne for a few months and 2UE has been on a bit of a cost-cutting exercise due to low ratings. At this stage it is unclear whether 2UE will take the weekend overnight show from 3AW in Melbourne after John leaves, but if they do it will be interesting to see how 3AW handle having NSW and Queensland stations taking their show on the weekend given the stark differences between the sporting tastes of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and 3AW’s position as a leading player in Melbourne’s radio coverage of AFL.
In other changes at 2UE, Mike Jeffreys returns to the 8pm-Midnight shift from December 10, filling in for the man who took his place in this timeslot, David Oldfield.
Next year could see many changes at 2UE with some odd sign-offs from existing hosts yesterday. Breakfast host Jason Morrision and Drive host Paul Murray both stated that they are unsure if they will return to their current timeslots next year. Some changes to the station’s lineup could depend on the outcome of NRL radio rights discussions. 2UE and 2SM are believed to have put in a joint bid for radio rights, and it is believed that this bid has been unsuccessful, but without any confirmation from the NRL or the radio stations themselves, anything could still happen.
Anyway, I will be sad to see John Kerr go. He has been an institution on my radio for many years and has been a welcome guest on the speaker of my radio. I have greatly enjoyed listening to John and having some conversations with him on the phone. I am also incredibly thankful to John for his time on a few occasions where he agreed to be interviewed for a school assignment and then again for Samuel’s Persiflage. I consider John to be a good friend, and will greatly miss his company.
John is a lovely man, and I intend on enjoying every moment of his remaining couple months on the air.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Samuel's Editorials,TV/Radio/Media
2 Comments
1. DREW1993 | December 9th, 2012 at 7:16 am
Paul Murray announced on his Facebook page that hed me doing Mornings 8.30am to 11.30am!!! More to Changes to 2UE Im guessing!!!
2. Samuel | December 9th, 2012 at 10:24 am
Indeed Drew. Paul’s show will be broadcast from a new purpose-built studio in (or adjacent to) the newsroom of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Jason Morrison announced on his last day for this year that he doesn’t know what shift he will be doing next year. I could say that I’d be surprised if he gets moved from Breakfast, but this is 2UE and I think they’ve exhausted their ability to surprise me now. I just expect that they will do whatever I would be unlikely to predict.
The latest examples:
1: Clinton Maynard was named as interim Program Director. Clinton makes a very good News Director and a great news presenter…based on his occasional fill-in talkback presenter shifts though, I wouldn’t have put him in as PD. I don’t doubt his ability to do the job, rather I don’t think that we would see eye-to-eye on many aspects of programming a talk station.
2: Mike Jeffreys is back on 2UE! He’s filling in for David Oldfield over Christmas/New Year starting tomorrow night. Ironically David Oldfield took over this shift from Mike Jeffreys under the previous PD, effectively punting Mike from the station.
So 2UE could have the “as many ranting callers as possible, as long as they all yodel their rants” breakfast show and I wouldn’t be surprised. I do so hope that they don’t do such a horrible thing though.