Robbie Buck and Wendy Harmer have announced they’re leaving ABC Radio Sydney’s breakfast show at the end of the year.

Robbie Buck and Wendy Harmer have announced they’re leaving ABC Radio Sydney’s breakfast show at the end of the year.Credit:Janie Barrett

“Look,we’ve been with[our listeners] through a pretty difficult time over the last few years with fires and floods and pandemics,so we feel pretty close and connected to them and it’s going to be a difficult thing to step away from them,” he says.

The pair’s departure comes at an interesting moment,just as their show experienced a ratings spike in the last radio survey (their audience share climbed to 14.0 per cent,up 2.1 percentage points,last month) and when talkback radio’s role in sharing information around the pandemic has seen the genre’s daily significance surge.

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“Wendy and I made a decision earlier in the year that this was probably going to be the last year we would do the show,and we still feel it’s the right time,” Buck says.

“We both have personal reasons for it,as well. I’ve been doing breakfast for eight years now - it’s a pretty gruelling shift. The hours and the content you have to pursue can be difficult,but it’s also that we both have aspirations to do other things.

“I’ve been sitting in a studio for a long time,I’m really keen to get out on the ground and rub shoulders with the rest of Australia.”

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Buck says he feels “extra lucky that I’m able to make the call to step away from a show like this on my own terms,which is often rare.”

He maintains he’s “not leaving the ABC” and hopes to return in the future in a role that potentially touches on his interests in visual arts,photography,video and sound production,but knows “there are no guarantees in this world”.

“I just need time out of the studio,out of the building,and a bit of a re-stock,” he says. “And it does coincide with me turning 50 next year and realising I have been in the building for more than half my life.”

Buck and Harmer’s last show on-air will be on December 10. An ABC spokesperson said an announcement on the pair’s replacement is likely to be made “within one-to-two weeks”.

With its successful stable of presenters across its national ABC network,the station won’t be without a longlist of internal options.

ABC Radio Sydney veteransJames Valentine and Richard Glover have long dominated their afternoon and drive slots respectively and would offer an easy transition for listeners,while evenings presenters Sarah Macdonald and Christine Anu have also proved consistently popular.

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The breakfast market’s increasing pull for younger listeners could also make Double J favourites - such as Zan Rowe,Clare Bowditch and Dylan Lewis - potential choices,and,while perhaps less likely,Triple J stars including Hobba and Hing andHack’s Avani Dias also command bigger opportunities.

Whoever it is,they’ll have imposing shoes to fill. Amid a breakfast radio landscape populated by polemic AM hosts and headline-chasing FM antics,during the past three years Buck and Harmer’s on-air presence has offered a more considered morning option.

Buck says the pair’s mission has been “holding power to account,but also having a lot of fun while doing it”.

“We both brought our long histories to the program - Wendy with her history of stand-up comedy and funny radio,and me with my history of music radio - and it was always about stitching those elements together to make something that is greater than the sum of the parts,” he says.

“I think we did that,so I’m really proud of it.”

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