Peter Brennan to leave 2UE
Fairfax Media’s struggling Sydney talk radio station 2UE has announced that programming director Peter Brennan will leave at the end of the year.
Brennan led last year’s relaunch of the talk station which saw a new generation of presenters brought in to challenge ratings leader 2GB.
The station targeted an 8.5% share of the Sydney audience by the end of last year. In the latest Nielsen survey, 2UE remained on 4.9%, behind 2GB’s 14.2%.
According to today’s announcement, Brennan will leave on December 14. GM Chris Parker said: “During his tenure at 2UE 954, Peter has led the programming team through some very exciting and also difficult times. His energy and commitment to 2UE 954 and talk radio has seen him drive considerable change and we have benefited from his safe and steady hands during challenging periods.
“Peter informed me in late August that he was considering his future with the station and ultimately he has decided to leave 2UE.”
He added: “Content director at a news talk station is one of the hardest jobs in commercial radio – so we’ll be searching far and wide for the right person to cultivate, lead and develop our content team, identify new talent and drive ratings success in 2013 and beyond.”
Despite the gap between 2UE and 2GB, the station has always insisted that closing the gap will be a long process, with its presenters a generation younger than those on 2GB and in place for when they begin to retire.
2UE has Jason Morrison in breakfast up against 2GB’s Alan Jones while drivetime sees Paul Murray, one of Australia’s youngest talk hosts, pitted against Ben Fordham.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Worth a fact check – Paul Murray is older than Ben Fordham.
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Time for a couple of female voices please! And yes I think Ben would take the prize for youngest! Think he’s still waiting for his voice to break!
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Talk radio in Sydney is a dead zone … 2GB, with Jones, Hadley and their line-up of think alike puppets, is a non-stop right wing rant … 2UE with Jason Morrison, Paul Murray and whoever else they’ve got on – who cares! – is a total snooze fest … 2BL with their oh so nice suburban presenters who never say an un-PC word is, well, relaxing for North Shore housewife types … Radio National at least engages your brain now and then, even if it’s inevitably from a lefty perspective … likewise, News Radio manages to tell you what’s going on in the world, even if it repeats itself every 15 minutes.Their overnight BBC World Service and occasional NPR coverage,which are both excellent, starkly illustrate what a barren landscape talk radio is in this part of the world.
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It takes many yearsfor a commentator to develop a radio audience, nothing much changes in a rating period or over a year, its takes 3 – 4 years.
People want balance
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Peter is a nice man. I wish him well.
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2UE is at the moment going thru a rebuilding stage.There will be ups and downs but bit by bit the presenters are building their audience and fine tuning their products.I would say that 2013-2014 things will start turning around and a solid growth will occur.Watch the seed grow to a big redwood in the future!
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