Ben Fordham has opened up about the pressure and responsibility he felt in taking over the ratings-leading 2GB Breakfast slot from Alan Jones.
Fordham, who had previously helmed the 2GB Drive slot in Sydney, had been asked numerous times to succeed Jones in the position, but declined. He didn’t want to be the “next cab off the rank, because [Jones is] a superstar as far as radio ratings are concerned”.
“Why would you be the guy who goes in after that?” he explained on Cathrine Mahoney’s
So, I Quit My Day Job podcast.
He was eventually convinced to take the risk, when managing director of Nine Radio, Tom Malone, pointed out that with the pandemic and advertising recession, nothing is certain, and his high pay on the Drive slot couldn’t be guaranteed in perpetuity.
Share It’s a bizarre industry in that sense. You just get thrown with people and get told Go make the magic happen, darl, and I’ll see you for a meeting at 9am where I’ll tell you how you fucked it up… Happy ratings day .
Bianca is currently the co-host of Hit 90.9 Breakfast on the Gold Coast.
Business: The 47-year-old said that morning show lineups are almost always thrown together by radio executives and then expected to find chemistry straight away
The veteran radio host was sacked from 97.3FM s breakfast show in late 2019 due to poor ratings.
Longtime radio star and current co-host of Hit 90.9 Breakfast on the Gold Coast, Bianca Dye, has revealed the challenges and crises of confidence which can occur when radio hosts are just lumped together and asked to make it work.
Dye said she loves her new co-hosts, Dan Anstey and Ben Hannant, but not everyone’s so lucky. Most of the time the people within radio shows aren’t actually friends, she said, and chemistry doesn’t ‘just happen’.
She said she’s been particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon because she’s often parachuted into a show, rather than establishing a talent lineup herself and taking it to a network.