Radio hosts return from leave to cover Bondi shootings

Radio stations Australia-wide have rearranged their normal programming to cover the Bondi shooting tragedy, with several talk station hosts unexpectedly returning to air.

ARN’s Christian O’Connell had been all set to broadcast from Sydney this week.

He was already in the Harbour City, and yesterday morning’s new Gold 101.7 Christian O’Connell Show was scheduled to be a ‘getting to know you’ program – presented live from Sydney for its new audience.

Instead, O’Connell ended  taking calls from listeners expressing sorrow and solidarity with the victims and the Jewish community.

In opening this morning’s show, O’Connell said “This week we were hoping to get to know each other [with a best of show] but sorry to get to know you this way …”

“It didn’t feel like it was happening here in Sydney Australia. Today’s show is a show of hope and support.”

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Woodsy and Cat returned to Triple M Sydney Breakfast this morning, praising Ahmed Al Ahmed for his incredible act at Bondi, tackling and disarming one of the gunmen.

With the end of ratings last week, most breakfast radio teams were scheduled to be on leave from today, but many Sydney Breakfast presenters delayed their holidays, returning to air this morning to cover the shooting.

Talk radio stations were the first to go live last night.

The ABC Listen app flashed an alert just before 9pm last night as ABC News Radio and the Sydney newsroom moved into live coverage.

2GB’s Ben Fordham returned to air this morning, along with the station’s news and production teams to cover the shootings.

Fordham played a number of interviews with eye witnesses recorded by 2GB reporters at the scene around Campbell Parade.

ABC Radio Sydney’s Hamish Macdonald went to Bondi overnight and is there this morning reporting into the ABC Sydney breakfast show, hosted by summer fill in Chris Taylor.

ABC NewsRadio was taking audio from ABC tv’s news breakfast show in the early morning timeslot.

2HD’s Richard King is covering the shooting from Newcastle, networked into 2SM.

The station’s News Director Dianne Coveny-Garland has been in Bondi all night and after giving an early morning report to Richard King. She will be back on air later this morning.