As one radio icon walked away from 2GB last week, a much younger one has taken over his shift from this morning. Mediaweek has always reported Ben Fordham would be the best internal candidate to replace Alan Jones and reset the station for a new generation.
Fordham wasted no time making a mark on day one, but he used up three massive interviews on his first day which might make it hard for his team to follow up with big guests for the rest of the week.
The new 2GB breakfast show has new theme music, but it’s not new to the Fordham drive audience – Coldplay’s Viva La Vida.
He asked his early risers for patience with the new boy – “I will be making a few errors along the way – bear with me.”
However it all seemed to go very well on day one as you would expect with the multimedia star who has always branded radio his #1 passion.
Headlining his first show was a dream team Fordham was promoting as “Sydney’s three biggest decision makers” – Scott Morrison, Gladys Berejiklian and Peter V’landys.
From the old Alan Jones show Fordham has retained local sports guy James Willis plus the foreign correspondents Harley Carnes in the US (who appeared twice today) and Adam Gilchrist in the UK.
One of the tag lines being used to promote the new show is “Opinions that matter – news you can trust”. Fordham had his first real opinion piece after 7am which seems like it will become a regular feature as it had been for Jones. Nothing too substantial on day one with Fordham commenting on the chance that Pete Evans might decide to enter politics.
Mark Latham got plenty of time with Fordham explaining the One Nation politician would be getting a spot every Monday.
The biggest news items to perhaps come out of the morning was Scott Morrison commenting on helping the Australian entertainment industry (at last), Gladys Berejiklian virtually signalling the next lockdown restrictions to be lifted would be gyms and dance studios along with kids sport and Peter V’landys promising he would never enter politics. “I have never been approached…but they know I am not interested.”