Legendary talkback radio host Neil Mitchell will step away from the microphone on his top-rating show after three decades with Melbourne station 3AW.
His exit will cause a major reshuffle in the broadcast booths with drive host Tom Elliot and new addition to the station’s lineup Jacqui Felgate tipped for timeslot promotions.
‘Apart from my family, radio has been my life and my love,’ Mitchell told his listeners on Friday. ‘I will miss enormously the energy, excitement, and occasional whack that the audience dishes out to me daily.’
Just three days ago, Mitchell celebrated another ratings win with a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
‘Great ratings for AW my program included,’ he wrote. ‘Extremely grateful to the audience for their support and loyalty.’
Legendary talkback radio host Neil Mitchell will step away from the microphone on his top-rating show after three decades with Melbourne station 3AW. He is pictured on Friday
Mitchell noted his ‘great ratings’ in 3AW’s morning shift in his last tweet on August 29
Mitchell, who will leave his role in December, said the 4am starts were ‘getting a little hard’ but he would continue to appear on 3AW as an analyst and do a weekly podcast.
The 71-year-old is a member of Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame and started his journalistic career at The Age newspaper in January 1969 as a 17-year-old cadet.
He spent about 15 years at the broadsheet before moving to The Herald, where he was appointed editor at 32. ‘I was too bloody young,’ he told Daily Mail Australia last year.
Mitchell made the part-time switch to radio in 1987, filling in for Derryn Hinch, then hosting a weekend breakfast program before a stint on drive.
He moved to mornings in 1990 and apart from what he called ‘a couple of little glitches here and there’ has been number one ever since.
Mitchell has also worked for all three commercial television networks but it is on 3AW he has made his biggest impact, forging a reputation for standing up for ‘the little guy’ and regularly steering national debate.
In 2013, Mitchel broke the story Ford would abandon its Australian manufacturing operations, earning him a Walkley Award.
Another major achievement was causing the Victorian government to repay $26million in invalid fines after he exposed faulty speed cameras used in the state.
Mitchell explained his philosophy to talkback radio in a lengthy interview with Daily Mail Australia last year.
‘I’ve always been of the view that it’s better to be seen as a person who is walking with the listeners rather than on a pedestal lecturing them and we try to avoid that,’ he said.
‘We represent, we argue for them, we fight for them. They’re who employees you. Never forget your audience and the audience are the people who we work for.
‘Yes, I’m grumpy sometimes, yes we take on fights but we also have some fun and a bit of a laugh. It’s a mixture. It’s light and shade. Any good journalism is.’
Of his political leanings, Mitchell said: ‘I think it’s my job to be suspicious of any politician – left, right, centre, whatever – and I try to do that. I think my audience is essentially leaning to the conservative, and I do that’.
Mitchell, who will leave his role in December, said the 4am starts were ‘getting a little hard’ but he would continue to appear on 3AW as an analyst and do a weekly podcast
Mitchell has been engaged in a long-running stand-off with Victoria’s Labor Premier Dan Andrews, who has not appeared on his program for more than six years.
He told Daily Mail Australia last year that Andrews was the worst Victorian premier in the state’s history.
On Friday he said of his pending departure: ‘And, don’t celebrate yet Daniel Andrews, I am here until December’.
Just last week, Mithcell’s hour-long interview with Anthony Albanese set the national agenda when the prime minister revealed he hadn’t read the entire Uluru Statement despite ‘endorsing it in full’.
Mitchell is famously private about his personal life but has been happily married to Selina since the 1980s with an adult son and daughter. In 2019 the family sold their Malvern East home of 40 years.
Mitchell had been contracted to 3AW until June 30 but rather than signing a new deal, his agreement was extended until the end of the year to give him room to make a decision on his next move.
The broadcaster and his 3AW bosses had insisted he would only leave the morning shift at a time of his own choosing.
Mitchell told Daily Mail Australia last year he could never imagine not working.
‘I reckon every time the contracts come up in about the past 10 or 15 years I’ve said, “That’s it, I’m getting out”,’ he said.
‘Nine has made it clear they’re happy with me and want me to keep going as long as I want to keep going.
‘Thirty, 35-odd years getting up at four o’clock in the morning does take a toll. So I don’t know. I won’t stop working.’
The current host of 3AW’s weekday drive program from 3-6pm, Tom Elliot, is the likely replacement for Mitchell in his 8.30am-12pm timeslot.
Elliot is an Oxford-educated former hedge fund manager and has been hosting drive since 2013, previously stepping up as a fill-in host for Mitchell.
Mitchell has been engaged in a long-running stand-off with Victoria’s Labor Premier Dan Andrews (above), who has not appeared on his program for more than six years
Taking over Elliot’s drive spot could be popular former TV newsreader Jacqui Felgate who leapt into radio after leaving Channel Seven in April 2022. She has been a hit with listeners and bosses in the afternoon timeslot.
The switch-around will be the biggest shakeup at 3AW since Mitchell joined the station in 1990.
Former 3AW colleague and The Project regular Steve Price wrote on Saturday that 3AW’s owners, the Sydney-based Nine Entertainment, was chasing a younger demographic for the station.
Price claimed the change in direction would sink the station and the decision was ‘laughable’ considering half its listeners, according to the most recent radio survey, were ‘at or near retirement age’.
Price recounted how Mitchell’s installation as morning host began 3AW’s dominance of the Melbourne radio market.
‘Within 18 months we – I was the program director by then – went from the number six rated station in Melbourne to number 1,’ he wrote in The Herald Sun.
Tom Elliot (right) is tipped to move from Drive to Mornings to replace Mitchell while Jacqui Felgate (left) will take over the Drive timeslot
Since then Mitchell has consistently rated at the top of his timeslot.
Price said Mitchell had the ‘work ethic of an ox’ and Melbourne newspapers relied on him for breaking stories.
‘People like Neil are trusted guests in their audience’s homes and cars… 3AW needs to be very careful thinking it can simply change the name on Neil’s office door and presume continued success,’ he wrote.
According to the most recent GFK radio survey, 3AW tops the Melbourne airwaves at 14.6 per cent audience share, with Gold in second at 11.1 per cent and smoothfm third at 9.7 per cent.
Nova and KIIS geared towards a younger demo tied for fourth spot with 7.3 per cent each and Triple M rounds out the top five with 5.3 per cent audience share.