6PR radio station in Perth axes popular hosts

Nine has sacked two of its star presenters in a move that has sent shockwaves through the industry.

Popular hosts Julie-Anne Sprague and Tod Johnson have both been axed as part of an overhaul at the media company's Perth -based 6PR talkback radio station as ad revenues continue to dry up.

Sprague, the station's only female presenter, signed on to front the station's critical 'afternoons' timeslot to much fanfare just 18 months ago after outgoing host Steve 'Millsy' Mills was promoted to the breakfast program.

Johnson, a legend of the Perth music scene from his days fronting local 80s band V Capri, joined the station as host of its 'The Nightshift' show from 8pm in a major revamp of the evening line-up back in February 2021.

Sources within the station said both presenters were caught completely off-guard when given the tap this week after Nine Radio's head of content, Greg Byrnes, flew in from Sydney to oversee the cuts.

Neither of the presenters will be replaced and instead their former colleagues' shifts will be extended to cover their departures in a desperate bid to crackdown on costs.

Mills and his breakfast show co-host, Karl Langdon, who are usually on-air from 5am, will now be given a little sleep-in with their start time pushed back to 6am and their show now running through until 10am.

The reshuffle means Gary Adshead's awkwardly titled 'mornings' show will now be on-air until the middle of the afternoon at 2pm after starting an hour later from 10am.

The 'afternoon' show will be scrapped entirely, with drive host Oli Peterson hitting the airwaves from 2pm before wrapping at his current knock-off time at 6pm, with the station's Wide World of Sports then being stretched out to two hours.

Johnson's former evening listeners will now tune in to hear Tony McManus's Money News program being piped in from across the country in 3AW's Melbourne studios from 8pm until 12am after.

His show had previously run in the graveyard shift from midnight until 3am.

In an internal email to all staff at the troubled station, Nine Radio boss Tom Malone said the radical overhaul was part of a wide-ranging strategy to cut costs at the cash-strapped media company.

'The advertising market in Perth has been tough - down 16% in the past 5 years, and rising costs have added extra pressure on our financial performance,' he said in the email.

'To ensure the station's sustainability, we're making adjustments that will help us return to profitability over the next 12 months, while still delivering the quality content our listeners love.

'Unfortunately this means that we'll no longer get to hear Julie-Anne Sprague or Tod Johnston on our airwaves.

'This is a sad and tough day for the Afternoon and Nights teams along with our listeners, and we deeply appreciate their contributions to 6PR.

'We're also reinvesting in our direct sales capability to boost revenue, combining cost reductions with efforts to strengthen our future.

'This combined approach of maximising content, reducing cost, and investing in sales will provide for a more certain future for 6PR.'

Staffers at Nine said there were concerns the cost-cutting and shift-stretching experiment could be replicated at the business's sister stations - 3AW, 2GB in Sydney and Brisbane 's 4BC - if it proved successful in Perth.

'Forget the hosts - not even the shows are safe anymore,' one Nine Radio insider told Daily Mail Australia.

'This demonstrates just how desperate they are to take the axe to our budgets - and that no one and nothing is scared.

'The worry is, if it works, it means there will be more cuts across the company and more heads will roll.

'And it's not just the presenters - it's the producers who make these shows who are also in the firing line.'

The shock reconfiguration at the talkback station is so fresh, 6PR's website was still promoting Sprague and Johnson's programs on Wednesday afternoon.

The changes come off the back of a dramatic overhaul of Nine's Brisbane talkback station that saw four hosts go in the space of just two weeks.

The station's struggling breakfast hosts Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine were given the axe last month - just a week after Daily Mail Australia revealed they were in the crosshairs following a devastating ratings nose drive.

The trio - household names in the Sunshine State - joined 4BC two years ago as the station switched to a classic hits format in the critical breakfast timeslot.

They initially claimed an impressive 11.8 per cent audience share - and third place - on debut in the Queensland capital's fiercely contested breakfast radio contest.

But the decision to steer the station away from traditional talkback in favour of 'light entertainment' - in stark contrast to its successful sister outlets 2GB in Sydney , 3AW in Melbourne and Perth 's 6PR - alienated listeners and ultimately proved a disaster.

Amid the turmoil, the station's high-regarded breakfast newsreader Steve Barker also announced he was heading for the door.

Nine bosses indicated the station would be returning to its talkback roots by giving hard-hitting 4BC Weekends host Peter Fegan the chance to prove himself in the crucial breakfast timeslot until the end of the year.

Veteran presenter and former Liberal MP Gary Hardgrave was then parachuted in for the outgoing Gleeson.

The moves come amid widespread, ongoing cuts across the entire Nine media empire.

Nine axed about 200 jobs from the company in August as part of $30million worth of cuts, with interim chief executive Matt Stanton vowing to chop a further $50million from the budget this financial year.