A popular presenting duo on Hits Radio in East Yorkshire have formally announced their upcoming departure from the station.
Alex Duffy and Nicola Lashley have hosted the weekday breakfast show Alex and Nicola in the Morning for several years. Their final show is scheduled to be broadcast on Friday, June 6, they announced earlier this week.
They followed the news with a farewell message posted to the pair’s social media accounts. Alex told listeners he had been doing the show for ten years and had “loved every second of it”.
An emotional-sounding Nicola, who has had three years presenting the show, said she had “never been welcomed so much as I have here” and Alex asked if she was okay. He said: “It’s been one of those secrets you have to hold for reasons and to be able to tell you now is … it’s nice to have that off us.”
Nicola said the duo’s last four weeks of hosting together would include Alex’s 40th birthday. She said: “It’s going to be good and these next four weeks, we are quite literally going out with a party.”
The breakfast show, along with other regional versions, will be replaced with a single national programme to be co-hosted by Fleur East, Will Best and James Barr and broadcast across the entire Hits Radio network. Parent company Bauer Media confirmed that it would scrap local and regional breakfast shows on all of its Hits Radio stations for the whole of England and Wales from June 9, in a statement earlier this year.
Both Alex and Nicola began broadcasting on Viking FM, as it was then known, which rebranded to Hits Radio in April of last year. They announced their departure as part of their programme on Wednesday, meaning the end of the last remaining locally produced show on the station.
Following the announcement, the pair received an outpouring of support on social media. One woman described how sad she was to hear the news having “moved to East Yorkshire two years ago” and how listening to the show “really helped” her to “settle in and get to know the area and community”.
She suggested the “bosses who have made this choice” do not “realise the impact local hosts have”. Another described it as a “dreadful decision” while another claimed she would now have to do her job “in silence” as “no other radio show comes close”.
In a report by the Daily Express earlier this year, Simon Myciunka, CEO of Bauer Media Audio UK, said: “We continually evolve to meet audience behaviours and advertiser needs and by launching one single national Breakfast show across Hits Radio, we are supercharging our efforts to provide a more unified, engaging experience across the entire schedule while also retaining local news and information.
“I’d like to extend my thanks to our Hits Radio Breakfast teams in England and Wales as they embark on their final run of shows. Their significant contribution has played a hugely important part of the Hits Radio story so far and we wish them well for the future.”
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