Update: Dean Miller and Sofie Formica said goodbye, then played a Beatles tune.
“What happens when you come to talkback radio is you open yourself up to people… It’s cutthroat and we were up against it from the very beginning.”
— Sofie Formica
It didn’t have to end like this. But, unlike many in their industry — including their predecessor, Peter Fegan, who was told on a Friday after his show ended that he would not be back on Monday — Dean Miller and Sofie Formica were given the chance to say goodbye to their listeners this morning.
They started the program on an upbeat note talking about the Broncos before addressing the elephant in the room. The duo were sacked yesterday. Come Monday, 4BC will air its sixth Breakfast show in six years and there will be a reshuffle of the deck, including one daytime show being networked from Sydney.
Why? As Formica said, “We did not turn the Titanic around.” The ratings were simply not good enough and there was no sign of audience growth.
Miller and Formica’s final show is still on air as I write this article, but here’s some of what they had to say in the first break after the 5.30am news:
The show included calls and texts from listeners disappointed at the change.
The final “banger” was The Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again? — with Miller joking that the studio microphones would definitely be off, lest that song’s famous callback go to air.
From Monday, the host of Breakfast will be Jason Matthews. Gary Hardgrave will move from Drive to Mornings, and Carla Bignasca will move from Afternoons to Drive.
Michael McLaren will be networked from 2GB in the Afternoons shift. The weekend show, Step Outside with Paul Burt will be replaced by The Garden Clinic from 2GB.
This is said to be a temporary arrangement until the end of the year, but one would have to wonder how much more change the audience can take.
I’ll be writing more about this soon.
Footnote: I spoke to Robert McKnight on McKnight tonight about the 4BC situation. Here’s a link.
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Disclaimer: Brett Debritz is sad that it’s come to this at 4BC, a station he grew up listening to and once worked for.