EXCLUSIVE
Erin Molan will part ways with Sky News Australia this week after the political news channel canceled its Friday night public affairs show.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal the political commentator and former Channel Nine NRL Footy Show presenter has already presented her final show on the News Corp-owned station and will officially end the channel on Friday afternoon.
Although network insiders suggested Molan was caught off guard by the decision to cancel her show, Sky News Australia insisted they had ended their association with the presenter on amicable terms.
“Erin has been a fantastic member of the Sky News team for the past three years and has worked incredibly hard for her viewers, passionately championing the issues that matter most to her,” a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
“We would like to thank Erin for her contribution to the network.”
Despite the fond farewell, Molan was believed to have failed to turn up at the station’s low-key Christmas party on Wednesday afternoon.
Daily Mail Australia has confirmed it presented its hard-hitting weekly news show, Erin, for the last time on Friday 29 November.
He will not be returning to the airwaves of Sky News Australia or getting the chance to say goodbye to viewers.
Sky News Australia presenter Erin Molan will part ways with the political channel this Friday after the News Corp-owned station decided to cancel its weekly news and current affairs programme.
Network colleague James Macpherson appeared on the show in Molan’s place last week, but viewers were told he was simply “filling in” for her and the show was still billed as Erin.
The decision to cancel Molan’s show comes just months after the breakfast radio show she co-hosted alongside comedians Dave Hughes and Ed Kavalee was canceled by Southern Cross Austereo station 2DayFM in August.
The trio were replaced by Hit Network’s Jimmy Smith and Nath Roye, who agreed to bring their late-night show The Jimmy and Nath Show to breakfast for the rest of the year.
The cancellation of Molan’s two key presenting roles is understood to have come at a significant financial cost to the veteran journalist.
Sources said he had been earning around $200,000 a year from his 2DayFM radio gig and another $150,000 a year from his work at Sky News Australia.
The 41-year-old journalist joined Sky News Australia in July 2022 after parting ways with Nine after 11 years at the network the previous December.
She debuted her own show, called simply ‘Erin’, at 7pm on 19 July, initially filling in for Sky presenter Sharri Markson on Sunday nights while she was on maternity leave, before her show moved to 5 pm on Fridays.
Explaining his decision to change channels, Molan said he had wanted to move away from sports broadcasting and into hard-hitting political coverage.
Molan had been at the station for almost three years after defecting from Nine
“Just because he can be silly and funny and all that stuff doesn’t mean he doesn’t also have a real passion for politics or that he can’t be credible in other spaces,” Molan told the Daily Telegraph at the press conference. time.
‘I’ve always loved news and it’s always been my passion, I’ve just been waiting for an opportunity to delve into it.
“As my show launches, I think the perception that maybe I’m just that sporty girl or that girl from The Footy Show will change,” Molan continued.
‘As a TV presenter, it doesn’t really matter what the topic is.
‘I’ve done entertainment, news bulletins, sports, I’ve presented ridiculous segments on The Footy Show.
‘None of those things make me any less legitimate in another space. The ability to do a lot of different things, laugh at yourself and be silly, but also be serious and believable when necessary, I don’t think any of those things are mutually exclusive.’
After canceling its breakfast show, Southern Cross Austereo content director Dave Cameron, who oversees 2DayFM’s programming, said the station would announce a full-time replacement “in due course”.
It is understood Smith and Roye have agreed to continue in the timeslot permanently.
Molan’s 2DayFM breakfast show, alongside comedians David Hughes and Ed Kavalee, was canceled in August.
Outgoing hosts Molan, Hughes and Kavalee issued a joint statement at the time thanking their audience for tuning in during their time on air.
“We loved our time together on 2DayFM Breakfast, however, due to some of our families living in different cities, we cannot commit until 2025,” they said.
“So, with a heavy heart, we are stepping aside so 2DayFM can find the team to take them forward on Breakfast.”
“We are so grateful to Sydney for their support, and doubling our listener numbers in three years is something we are immensely proud of and we will miss each and every one of them.”
The decision to ax the show soon proved to be a flashpoint after Molan’s News Corp colleague Annette Sharp wrote an op-ed in Sydney’s Saturday Telegraph stating that the decision to remove the presenters “had been going on since October 2023”.
‘With the expensive Hughes/Kavalee/Molan radio show struggling to make inroads into the breakfast slot and losing around a third of its audience in the fourth and final radio ratings (down from a share of 5 to 3.6 and finishing sixth behind 2GB, KIIS, WS, ABC, Smooth and Triple M), the writing was on the wall for the breakfast team whose appeal with 2DAY’s traditional female audience has always been in doubt,” Sharp wrote on 10 August.
“Hughes, Kavalee and Molan were robbed of the opportunity to say goodbye to their audience when 2DAY quickly switched to a music-only format on Thursday, which some radio experts predict may attract better ratings.”
The story attracted an almost instant rebuke from Molan, who remains a Daily Telegraph columnist, who returned fire on the paper’s website less than four hours later.
Sky News Australia presenter James Macpherson replaces Molan on his show, Erin, last Friday.
“Dear Annette,” he wrote in an open letter.
‘Thank you very much for the interest you continue to show in my career. Just a couple of things, and I won’t be long here, but when you don’t give me the right to respond I’m forced to do it myself.
‘Just a couple of facts you conveniently left out in your article… In 3 years we took our Sydney morning radio show from less than 200,000 listeners to over 400,000 listeners – that’s incredible growth.
‘My weekly 5pm show, Erin, on Sky News is usually the number one show on the network on Fridays.
‘I also write a column for this newspaper and for Stellar magazine… both seem to be quite well received.
‘Cruz del Sur Austereo asked me to stay and I said no. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’m clearly not yours, and that’s okay, but please contact us in the future when you’re unsure of the facts.
Despite encouraging journalists to contact her for comment, Molan did not respond when approached by Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.