After four decades of early alarms, live callers and breaking news, Neil Mitchell sounds more energised about what comes next than nostalgic for what has gone.
Two years after stepping away from his long-running, top rating 3AW Mornings radio show, and and spending much of his time since fronting the long-form podcast Neil Mitchell Asks Why for 9Radio, the veteran broadcaster has now been told the podcast will not continue on the network.
He is disappointed, but far from done.
– Advertisement –
It is a development he describes without anger, but with a pragmatic tone of someone who has lived through several eras of the radio business and understands that nothing, not even a successful podcast, is permanent.
“The podcast has had its day” – and why he isn’t furious about it
In conversation with TV Blackbox, Mitchell is direct about how the decision was put to him. There was no drawn-out negotiation, no attempt to spin the outcome as anything else.
“I’m not leaving entirely. I’m continuing a weekly spot with Tony Moclair, which I enjoy.
That will keep going, but the podcast has had its day, sadly.
9Radio has decided it doesn’t want to continue it, and that’s fair enough – it’s up to them.”
He does not disguise the fact that he would happily have kept going with Neil Mitchell Asks Why, nor does he pretend that closing it is his choice. But he is careful not to frame the move as a betrayal or a rupture with management.
NINE is going in a different direction.
Good luck to them. They’ve been good to me. I’ve got no complaints.”
The message, he says, was delivered by Nine Radio boss Tom Malone, a figure he has known since Malone was a reporter. The conversation was brisk, but, in Mitchell’s telling, also respectful and free of corporate euphemism.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Tom Malone. I knew him as a reporter years ago and I found him straight to deal with.
This is an example: ‘No, we don’t want to continue it. No mucking around. That’s it, thanks very much, it’s over. Let’s have lunch.’
We went and had lunch. I’ve never found Tom manipulative or dishonest. He was very decent and very supportive, even when I decided to step down from mornings.”
That mix of disappointment and acceptance sets the tone for how Mitchell views this latest career shift: one more change in a business he has seen reshaped by new owners, new platforms and new fashions in programming.
The former 3AW Mornings presenter says guests often opened up more freely on Neil Mitchell Asks Why than they did in traditional radio interviews. (image – Herald-Sun)
Why long-form still matters to him
If he is philosophical about the corporate decision, he is more animated when he talks about the long-form format itself. After years of fast-paced talkback and tight radio interviews, Neil Mitchell Asks Why gave him scope to slow down and draw out guests who are otherwise used to brief, combative exchanges.
“I’m talking to a few other (Podcast Producers) about continuing somewhere else.
I’d like to – maybe not once a week, that’s pretty onerous – because I enjoy long-form interviews.
They’re not happening much anymore, anywhere, and I still think there’s a bit of room for growth in that area, even though the podcast market is so crowded.”
– Advertisement –
He has a clear view of what makes the format different. Politicians, executives and seasoned media performers, he says, often relax once they realise there is no hard out at the ten-minute mark and no need to compress their answers into soundbites.
“I was looking back on what we’d done and it’s amazing when you get people on a podcast – particularly people who are experienced talkers like politicians.
Because it’s open-ended, they relax a bit.
They tend to open up in a way they don’t anywhere else.”
The guest list for Neil Mitchell Asks Why ranged widely: Peter Dutton in his only interview since losing the election, former Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, veteran broadcaster Derryn Hinch, humanitarian Moira Kelly, long-time priest Father Kevin Dillon, and corporate leaders such as former CSL chief executive Brian McNamee, who helped grow the company from $24 million to $85 billion in value.
Those conversations, Mitchell suggests, often went to places that would have been impossible in a traditional radio segment.
“With Derryn Hinch, I did an hour and fifteen – he’d had it by the time we finished – and we got some really interesting stuff you wouldn’t get in ten minutes.
Brett Sutton, the chief health officer, went into areas I didn’t think he would.
One of my early ones was Brian McNamee from CSL – he never talks. We had a fascinating discussion and he still says, ‘That was fun.’ He was happy to do a podcast when he might not have done radio.”
For a broadcaster who built a career on making complex issues accessible to a mass audience, the attraction of that depth is obvious. Yet he is realistic about the broader environment.
“Podcasts are still finding their feet.
It’s such an interesting area because it’s so cluttered, but I still like to think if you can find the right niche – and I’m not sure I’ve found that – there’s a chance for growth and expansion.
My first rule in journalism is to be interesting. It’s got to be interesting. There’s no point sitting there interviewing somebody who’s dead boring for an hour.”
Behind that line is a familiar theme: the audience’s time is precious, whether they are listening to live radio in the car or scrolling through a long list of podcasts.
The work after “retirement” – and why he still feels busy
When Mitchell signed off from 3AW Mornings in December 2023, he said he was exhausted after getting up at 4am for decades. The plan was to slow down. In practice, his schedule has remained crowded: podcasts, columns for Nine’s websites, a weekly segment with Tony Moclair, and other occasional media work.
“They don’t want me hanging around mornings or drive (Radio Shifts), and that’s fine.
I stepped away because I was buggered and I’ve probably worked harder than I intended for the past couple of years.
I was doing the podcast, which has a fair bit of work behind it, writing a piece for the Nine website most weeks, doing the Moclair thing and other bits and pieces.
It was nowhere near as onerous as doing mornings, of course, but I found it was taking more time than I intended.”
He sounds more amused than aggrieved about this. The end of Neil Mitchell Asks Why may, if anything, push him closer to the semi-retirement he had envisaged – though he is not ready to disappear.
“I enjoyed it immensely and I still think there’s something to achieve there, so we’ll see what happens.
I love writing, so I’ll probably do some writing.
There might be some TV, little bits of TV. There might be some podcasts, there might be other projects. There are a few things floating around. We’ll just see what happens.”
– Advertisement –
At one point, after reflecting on how much disposable income older listeners control and how often they are overlooked by advertisers, he jokes about building something explicitly aimed at his own generation.
“Maybe I’ll start a Boomer podcast.”
Mitchell says live radio still pulls at him, especially during major breaking news, though he is satisfied with his decision to step away from mornings. (image – Wikipedia)
Live radio’s pull – “At times like that, talk radio comes into its own”
However enthusiastic he is about long-form audio, Mitchell remains, at heart, a live talkback presenter. He admits he still feels the tug of the open line when major news breaks.
“Of course I miss live radio. But it was right to go – I had to go. I was exhausted after 36 years of getting up at 4am and working most of the time.
I did a couple of spots (this week) on the Bondi shooting and it reminded me how good it can be.
When you see something like that, you do have the impulse to get to a microphone.
Sometimes I sit down and write a column instead – I wrote two pieces for the Herald Sun in a week and one for The Age – the urge is still there.”
What he misses most is not the adrenaline, but the sense of being a steady presence for listeners in distress – a role he came to recognise after events such as Port Arthur, the Bali bombings, September 11 and, more recently, the pandemic.
“After real disasters, you can go on air and, in a sense, be a reassuring voice – almost a counselling voice.
You can offer people some comfort.
At times like that, talk radio comes into its own and you can really do something positive for the community. You can feel the pain in the community and I missed being there.”
That sense of immediacy, he argues, is something no other medium quite replicates.
“People underestimate talk radio. Nobody else can do that: here’s the caller, here’s an immediate reaction, here’s somebody deeply disturbed by what’s happened in Bali or Bondi explaining why.
There is that immediate connection which is rewarding and demanding and a big responsibility, but it’s so important to talk radio.”
“You’re owned by the audience, not the management”
Ask Mitchell about his own style and he quickly distances himself from the classic Sydney “shock jock” label. He insists his approach was not about provocation for its own sake, but about representing listeners – even when that meant arguing with them.
“I’d like to think I wasn’t a shock jock in that category.
I had a basic philosophy that we’re actually working for the audience, not shouting at it.
I wasn’t going to sit there and rant from the left or the right for three hours.
We’d try to pick up things, represent people and achieve things. I always saw it as a representative job – a bit of crusading in there, but not too much.”
While being careful not to name names, he does think some current radio hosts can now be too wary of challenging their own audiences, when real engagement often lies in those points of tension.
“It’s always good to have a disagreement with the audience.
I hate to think of the fights I’ve had about capital punishment because I loathe it and the audience thought I was very wrong.
But you can have stimulating, intelligent debates around that sort of thing. Radio can’t be dull – whatever it is, you can’t be dull.”
For Mitchell, authenticity is non-negotiable. Manufactured outrage, he says, is both ethically and commercially short-sighted.
“I could never contrive excitement or contrive anger. I could never act and I didn’t try.
Maybe in the first year I tried, but after that you realise you’re no actor – just go with what you believe in.
If you think a different way to the audience, then you think a different way. There’s no point contriving it – people would see through it.”
That philosophy underpins his broader view of why radio has survived repeated predictions of its demise, from cassettes in the car to streaming services in every pocket.
“As long as I can remember, people have been saying radio is doomed.
The old cassettes in cars were going to kill radio – they haven’t. Streaming was going to kill music radio – it hasn’t, it’s just presented new challenges.
Radio keeps adapting. It’s a survivor because, if you’re doing it properly, it’s owned by the people.
You’re owned by the audience, not the management or the advertisers, and you work for them.”
Ratings, revenue and the struggle to sell talk
Behind the scenes, though, Mitchell has long been aware of a persistent tension: strong ratings do not automatically solve the commercial puzzle for talk radio, particularly when agencies focus on younger demographics.
He points out that 3AW has often been the number one station in Melbourne over the past 30 to 35 years, yet still found itself fighting for its share of advertising.
“For most of the last 30, 35 years, it’s been the number one station and on and off made money, lost money, did reasonably well.
But as long as I can remember, there’s been a problem making enough money, selling enough ads.
I remember saying, ‘We’ve given you number-one figures for all these years, what else can we do?’”
One presentation to ad buyers has clearly stayed with him. Armed with numbers on baby boomers’ spending power, he tried to make the case that a station with an older audience should be an obvious home for mainstream brands, not just niche products.
“I got the figures on how much money boomers have as disposable income and said, ‘There’s all that money – why can’t we advertise to them?’
It’s not just funerals and incontinence pads. Boomers drink wine, they travel, they buy cars, clothes, food, houses. They’re spending their money.
It didn’t work. There was this perception in the advertising industry that you only advertise old stuff on AW, and that’s nonsense.”
It is one of the paradoxes of his career: a consistently dominant timeslot, a fiercely loyal audience, and yet regular battles to persuade advertisers that older listeners are worth chasing.
Was he pushed, or did he jump?
In an industry where the departures of veteran presenters are often described as “retirements” when they are anything but, Mitchell is keen to head off any suggestion that he was forced out of daily radio or that the end of the podcast is part of a deliberate purge of big-name expensive contracts at 9Radio.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Come on, you were really sacked, weren’t you?’
Tom Malone said, ‘Do four days a week or work from home or something like that.’
It was tempting, but I’d had it. I was done. They didn’t push me out.”
He also points to Ross Stevenson and Tom Elliott as evidence that high-profile, high-paid talk presenters remain central to Nine’s plans.
“They didn’t push me out and I was well paid.
Ross Stevenson would be the highest-paid person on Melbourne radio – he bloody well should be if he’s not – and they didn’t push him out.
I don’t think they pushed anybody out.”
That insistence on loyalty runs both ways. In 2009, during a period of tension with management, Mitchell turned down a lucrative offer from rival talk station MTR, choosing to stay with 3AW and its audience. A multi-million-dollar three-year extension followed in 2011, cementing his place in the schedule and underscoring his commercial value.
Now, as Neil Mitchell Asks Why draws to a close at 9Radio, he is again at a crossroads – albeit one shaped more by shifting corporate priorities than by dramatic fallouts.
What remains constant is his instinct to keep asking questions, whether on air, online or in print. He may not yet know what form his next project will take, or who will commission it, but he has little doubt that curiosity – about politics, power and the lives of his listeners – will continue to drive him.
The long-form interview podcast Neil Mitchell Asks Why, produced for 9Radio, has now concluded its run on the network.
– Advertisement –
