Jonathan McMahon and John O’Brien, the comedy duo known as the 2 Johnnies, have said RTE’s strict new rules on outside commercial activities were not behind their decision to leave their 2fm drivetime show.
The pair’s announcement came after Doireann Garrihy revealed her decision to leave the station this month after five years, before their colleague Jennifer Zamparelli followed suit last week.
“You can’t keep working seven days a week for ever. We want our lives back,” McMahon said yesterday.
The duo — also known as Johnny B and Johnny Smacks — who covered a range of topics including catfishing and sextortion on their show, revealed that they had been out of contract since February.
“We came in to do a job, which was to bring up the ratings — we’ve done that. What more can we do over the next two or three years if we were to sign a contract?” McMahon added.
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Among the reasons behind their exit is their devotion to The 2 Johnnies Podcast, which they described as the sun in their universe.
“We were the first podcast to go full video on Spotify in Ireland, the first podcast to do the 3Arena, first podcast to do an outdoor live festival,” McMahon said.
Other factors that have led to their decision included busy schedules and impending “burnout”.
The pair revealed they would not rule out the possibility of returning to the airwaves in the future, depending on concessions from both sides.
“The door would always be open for us to go back, but some things would have to change,” John O’Brien said on Brendan O’Connor’s Radio 1 show.
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The final episode of their afternoon show, Drive It with the 2 Johnnies, will be broadcast on Friday.
Dan Healy, the 2fm boss, confirmed that Laura Fox, who had been standing in for Zamparelli during her recent absence, would remain in the slot permanently.
Gareth O’Callaghan, a former 2fm presenter, welcomed the new restrictions at RTE which mean all presenters must declare any outside income.
“Brand ambassadors and influencers — that all has to stop. Let them do that independently as self-employed individuals, but not within the structure of a radio station that is owned ultimately by the state,” he said.
He added the public had been losing respect for 2fm for quite some time and that the station had changed considerably.
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“In the late Eighties and Nineties it was a fantastic radio station and the people who worked there were committed to the brand,” he said. “What’s happened now is that we’re in an age of influencers, and there’s no longer the same loyalty. When you lose loyalty, the brand suffers.”
After losing four of its biggest presenters, he called for 2fm to be sold or “replace it with something that has a greater appeal”.
He added: “All 2fm is now just a series of shows that are completely detached from each other. As a result of that there’s no real public perception of what a radio station should be.”
O’Callaghan said the public were “repulsed” by the conduct of RTE, both by how it used the licence fee and the quality of its output. “People who have forgotten about 2fm are now being reminded that it’s funded by advertising and by the licence fee, and they’re wondering why it still exists,” he said.
Ian Dempsey, who was also previously employed by RTE and is Garrihy’s godfather, believed presenters should be allowed to work outside of their presenting roles and that they were leaving due to the new restrictions.
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“All of these presenters were employed by RTE in the first place because of their high number of social media followers, and now they’re being told not to influence any more — that’s it in a nutshell,” he said.
“I suppose they just have to weigh it all up and think, is it worth it? If they give in to these new restrictions, do they lose a huge amount of income?”
He argued: “In the world in which I now operate, you’re contracted to do a job and once you do that job and it doesn’t bring the company into disrepute, you can do what you want outside of work. I believe it should be exactly the same for anyone on a contract in RTE.”
Dempsey believed that RTE was “on dangerous ground”. “It’s an opportunity for RTE to take a look at itself and consider abandoning ship,” he said. “I think it would be a shame if that were to happen, however. The industry needs competition.”
Donnchadh O’Neill, a former RTE presenter and now managing director of Gibney Communications, said he was not surprised about the recent spate of resignations.
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“It’s part of the shock and the events of last year that are still working themselves out,” he said, referring to the scandals revealed at the station in the last year.
“RTE is operating commercially within a very cautious self-imposed straitjacket,” he said, “particularly around this self-imposed register of interests and no one is quite sure how that will end.”
