Spencer Howson comes home to Aunty
Winter break fill-ins bolster rumours of a reset at ABC Brisbane.
One of Brisbane’s most-successful broadcasters is returning to where it all began.
Spencer Howson, who was regularly the city’s highest-rating Breakfast host over a 10-year tenure ending in 2016, will be back behind the mic in the ABC studios from Monday, June 24, as a cover for Afternoons host Kat Feeney. And he won’t be the only familiar voice in the holiday line-up.
Most recently heard on the Weekend shift on commercial station 4BC from 2020-2023 (where I was his inaugural producer), Howson is otherwise keeping busy teaching radio students at the University of Southern Queensland and providing corporate media training.
Howson teased a big announcement this (Friday) morning — with a picture on social media of him in the ABC studio with the caption “Football’s not the only thing coming home” — leading some to believe he would be back helming Breakfast. (More on that soon.)
The Afternoons gig was officially announced on the ABC Brisbane Facebook page.
Howson told Mister Brisbane: “It’s nice to still be wanted after all this time! It’s end-of-semester break at UniSQ so I was able to say yes to a week of presenting Afternoons.
“But I am nervous about filling Kat Feeney’s shoes. She has such a good rhythm and connection with her listeners. I’ll try not to break it, Kat.”
Also back at ABC Brisbane in a fill-in capacity over the non-ratings period is Ellen Fanning, who began her celebrated career at the former 4QR before going on to senior reporting and presenting roles. Her CV includes several years hosting the flagship radio current affairs program AM and, more recently, The Drum on ABC TV. She was also a reporter for Channel 9’s 60 Minutes.
Fanning will host Breakfast over the break, while Cathy Schnitzerling will be heard on Mornings.
The presence of Howson and Fanning at the South Bank studios have further fuelled rumours of permanent line-up changes. Although its numbers were up in the most recent survey, ABC Brisbane has been in the ratings doldrums in recent years.
It is certainly a far cry from the days when Howson was regularly attracting around 15% of the available audience — a number that would make him No.1 again today, by a comfortable margin — and won a whopping 45 surveys in Breakfast between 2007 and 2016.
Meanwhile, the rumour mill has it that there is also talk of “renewal” at some of the commercial music stations, where the Breakfast line-ups have been relatively static for many years and none of the players have been able to break far ahead of the pack.
With revenue getting tighter, salaries are coming under scrutiny.
The industry as a whole is also looking closely at the experiment of relaying the Sydney-based Kyle and Jackie O Show into KIIS Melbourne and, potentially, other markets. If networking is seen to succeed, there will be more of it for cost-cutting reasons.
While it’s very early days yet, it’s fair to say that Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson have yet to make the big splash KIIS owners ARN were hoping for.
Updated: Howson told Kat Davidson (filling in for Kat Feeney) on Friday afternoon that he might try to break his own record for the number of cats in a radio studio. He also suggested that, despite his experience, he would be nervous and might hit the wrong buttons during his first half-hour on air on Monday.
He also spoke about the future of radio and seemed to leave the door open for a more permanent return to the airwaves.