Peter Gleeson’s dog days are over
Former 4BC Drive host quits position with as-yet-unopened greyhound club
Six months after he took up the job, former Sunday Mail editor, Sky News pundit and 4BC Drive announcer Peter Gleeson has left the position of CEO of the Greater Brisbane Greyhound Club.
Adam Dobbin explains the circumstances here, but Gleeson’s departure seems to be related to factionalism within the greyhound world ahead of the opening of “The Q” stadium somewhere out in the Boonies.
Of course, some people would say it’s an industry we could do without altogether. Greyhound tracks have closed down elsewhere in the world amid waning interest in the sport and claims of animal cruelty. And it’s not like punters don’t have enough things to bet on.
What next for Gleeson? My sources suggest the smart money is on him joining Premier David Crisafulli’s already burgeoning media team — in which case, I shall refer to him as “Number 38” — but anything is possible. A return to radio may not be out of the question, but there isn’t a lot of on-air work going in that realm right now.
Rumours are swirling around about potential changes Gleeson’s most-recent-but-one place of employment, Nine Radio’s 4BC (where they are looking to hire a promotions and office manager). I’ve written about that many times, most recently here. (Upshot: the Nine Radio network is likely to be sold at a substantial discount to the price at which it last changed hands,)
It seems that the entire Australian radio industry seems is in turmoil right now.
SCA, which owns the Today (including B105) and Triple M networks, has just announced a further round of redundancies, likely to affect 40 people across the country.
One significant impact is the closure of Luke Bona’s Night Shift program. Long gone are the days when every station had a “graveyard shift” catering to night workers and insomniacs. This one catered for 70 stations and is still, apparently, not sustainable.
As Jen Seyderhelm writes, this comes ahead of expected half-yearly announcements from SCA, Nine Radio and ARN next week, so further bad news might be just around the corner.
For I feel deeply for the staff affected by past, recent and future cuts, it’s hard to summon up much sympathy for the bosses across all networks who’ve made spectacularly bad decisions.
Disclosure: Brett Debritz used to part-own some racing greyhounds back in the 1970s and early 1980s. He also used to work for 4BC and Queensland Newspapers, and does other things very much unrelated to this blog.