The 2 Johnnies have revealed why they decided to leave 2FM.
Earlier this week, the comedy duo, who hosted Drive It with The 2 Johnnies for two years, revealed the would be ending the show on May 31st.
The announcement came right after social media star and radio host Doireann Garrihy revealed she was leaving 2FM, with Jennifer Zamparelli following suit just this week.
With many now believing that 2FM stars are quitting the station over lower paying contracts, the Tipperary pair insisted that the “money was agreed long ago.”
The pair insisted that if they had not left the station, they “would have been burnt out”.
Johnny B and Johnny Smacks spoke to Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ Radio 1 and opened up about their shock exit.
“We haven’t time,” Johnny B admitted. “To be honest, we’ve been working seven days a week for the last two years, and we’re working all day today and all day tomorrow again on our new show.”
“We can’t stop doing our podcast, we can’t stop doing our patreon podcast, we can’t stop doing live gigs. Something had to go like. We could’ve stopped doing telly, but that’s very sporadic work.
“So if we ever want to have our lives back, unfortunately radio was the one that had to go. And we loved doing it, Brendan.”
Brendan then asked: “If they offered you more money would you stay?”
“The money was agreed long ago,” Johnny Smacks added. “You can’t keep working seven days a week forever. We want our lives back.”
“We would have been burnt out we, would have been tired.”
The duo have continued to promote upcoming projects from their podcast to various TV shows such as The 2 Johnnies’ Late Night Lock In as well has having a music career.
During their appearance on the Radio One show, the pair admitted that their podcast was their man focus and that they were never getting a proper break.
It’s no secret that The 2 Johnnies have successful careers outside of their work at the station, including commercial partnerships and corporate presenting gigs. All deals would have been affected by new rules governing RTÉ employees.
Last month, RTÉ launched a new Register of Gifts, which will require employees to declare any gifts they receive that are above a certain value.
Staff must complete a form detailing any gift with a realistic value between €50 and €100.
Another form launched asks staff to declare a conflict of interest when a situation arises that “may influence, or be seen by a reasonable person to influence, a staff member in their work for RTÉ.”
Radio host Brendan asked the pair if the new rules affected their decision to leave the station.
“We’re not influencers…more power to the people who are,” Johnny Smacks said.
When discussing how the decision to leave the station arose, Johnny B said that “we were out of contact”, when asked if there were negotiations to renew the contract the GAA star said “we tried to iron things out with Dan (Healy)”, who is the boss of 2FM.
However, Johnny Smacks pointed out that they had already signed a contract with the station that included a term where they had to declare all outside earnings, stating that the new rules were no different to terms they had agreed to before.
While the pair are moving on to focus on their own podcast and music careers, Johnny Smacks pointed out that their show increased in listenership since they took over.
“The drive time slot was the lowest in the ratings for 2FM, now it’s the highest,” he said.
“We came in here to do a job, which was bring up the ratings, and we’ve done that. What more can we do over the next two or three years if we were to sign in a contract…it’s hard to know,” he added.
Still focusing on the rumours of money being the reason why many hosts are walking, Brendan asked: “If the contract had been right, you would’ve signed it, you were talking to them?”
But Johnny B insisted: “I wouldn’t go that far. There’s a lot on our side of genuinely being too busy.”
“I think if we hadn’t of made this decision to leave 2FM and if we had kept working as we are then you would have seen the ‘Dark Johnnies’,” Johnny Smacks added.
“In terms of we would’ve been burnt out we would’ve been tired.”
However the pair did not rule out a return to the airwaves just yet. “The door is always open from our side. 2FM is a great place to work and loved every minute of it there,” Johnny Smacks revealed.
“They have our numbers. We’re still in the Whatsapp group. They haven’t deleted us out of it yet,” he laughed.
“We’ll leave the door open. You never know. I think we will be back in radio someday,” he added.
And what does the future look like for the pair? Johnny B boasted that their podcast was “the first podcast to do video, the first podcast to play the 3 Arena, the first podcast to do a live festival, we like to make moves and be ambitious with our work.”
