Brisbane 4BC’s Neil Breen will hang up his headphones after Friday afternoon’s Drive show, leaving his radio show to prioritise his family.
“Good afternoon and welcome to Brisbane Live, I’m Neil Breen and I’ll no longer be with you every day from three to 6pm. Thanks for joining me over the last couple of years,” Breen began his show on Friday.
Before diving into the day, Breen reflected on when he first started with the station, playing a snippet of We Take Care Of Our Own by Bruce Springsteen – Breen’s original intro song.
“I specifically chose that as we relaunched local radio on 4BC in June 2020,” he said. “We were in the early part of the pandemic, and I chose that because it was time for governments, I believed, to take care of our own at that time – but not in the ridiculous way that they ended up doing so, when they took care of us for their own benefit.”
It was a full circle moment as Breen opened with the first news story of the day – Queensland scrapping the Covid “traffic light” alert system.
Ahead of the show, Breen also took a cheeky shot at NSW Blues number six, Jarome Luai, who stirred up controversy with a post-State of Origin Instagram photo.
My last show after 3 years on 4BC this arvo… it’s been so fun, but… pic.twitter.com/tFzx2e6T5o
— Neil Breen (@breenie9) June 23, 2023
Breen relocated from Sydney to Brisbane to take over the breakfast slot from Alan Jones when he retired, before shifting to the afternoon Drive slot. Breen has previously named this as the main reason he decided to step away from the position, as he had been commuting between NSW and Queensland and living in Brisbane five days a week.
Neil Breen leaves his Drive show on a 5.8% share in the Brisbane market.
Peter Gleeson will be jumping behind the mic in the interim. The position will not be permanent, however, with Gleeson acting in a caretaker role.
Content manager Max Dudley sent an email to staff earlier in the month to say that Gleeson will begin on Monday, June 26th, and that “An announcement on a permanent 4BC Drive host will be made later in the year.”
Previously a Sky News presenter and Courier-Mail columnist, Gleeson left News Corp in November last year after being found to have plagiarised several columns. At the time, Gleeson said that “I apologise for breaching News Corp’s Code of Conduct and instances where I have not met the standards required.”