Frank Skinner has announced he is leaving Absolute Radio after 15 years at the station.
The broadcaster and comedian, 67, has been on Absolute Radio since 2009 where he hosts the Saturday breakfast slot The Frank Skinner Show alongside co-hosts Emily Dean and Pierre Novellie.
He also hosts Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast which will continue for two more series.
A broadcast star, Frank was inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame in December 2015, yet in a pre-recorded show he has now revealed he will be leaving in May as he confirmed his contract hasn’t been renewed and he hasn’t taken it well..
He explained: ‘My manager (called)… you know every year, about this time, we’ve just celebrated our 15th anniversary on the show, so obviously that means the new contract is coming, and every year I do self-deprecating jokes about the fact that we probably won’t get it renewed.
Comedian Frank Skinner, 67, has announced his departure from Absolute Radio after 15 years and he admitted he ‘didn’t take it well’
The broadcaster and comedian, 67, has been on Absolute Radio since 2009 where he hosts the Saturday breakfast slot The Frank Skinner Show, but his contract has not been renewed
‘Guess what?! Yeah, we didn’t! So, um, we’re not just going now, I’m not going to say bye and that’s the end we’ve got, like, several other, we’ve got some notice to serve, but um yeah, but no that was um… that’s it!’
Frank admitted he didn’t take the news well and confessed he ‘doesn’t want to go’.
He continued: ‘We had a good run but I realise that in recent times I am ever more becoming Grandad from The Simpsons, but even so um, yes, I’m not going to pretend I took it… well.
‘I took it well in that we’ve had 15 years and Absolute have actually been very, very good to us in those 15 years but I didn’t take it well. I took it in the way David Tennant took it as the tenth Doctor when he started to regenerate and said: “I don’t want to go!”‘
Speaking about Frank’s departure, Paul Sylvester, Absolute Radio’s content director said: ‘Frank has been a huge part of the Absolute Radio story and after 15 years this is truly the end of an era.
‘We are hugely grateful for the contribution he’s made to both Saturday mornings and our charity comedy nights at the London Palladium.
‘We’ll share details of our future summer schedule in due course, but there’s still a few more weeks to enjoy Frank, Emily and Pierre on Saturday mornings.’
Fans of the show were beside themselves as they took to Twitter to share their devastation.
He explained: ‘My manager (called)… you know every year, about this time, we’ve just celebrated our 15th anniversary on the show, so obviously that means the new contract is coming, and every year I do self-deprecating jokes about the fact that we probably won’t get it renewed….Guess what?! Yeah, we didn’t!’
Frank confessed he ‘doesn’t want to go’. He joked:’ I took it in the way David Tennant took it as the tenth Doctor when he started to regenerate and said: “I don’t want to go!”‘
Fellow comedian and Frank’s pal David Baddiel led the tributes with an outraged tweet
Fans of the show were beside themselves as they took to Twitter to share their devastation
Fellow comedian and Frank’s pal David Baddiel led the tributes as he wrote: ‘Frank Skinner’s show on Absolute is brilliant and the decision not to renew it can only have been made by an Absolute t**t’.
Other listeners then chimed in agreeing with David as they penned: ‘It’s the only radio show I deliberately listen to.’; ‘No way !!!!…he’s part of my Saturday routine …I demand a full explanation for this’; ‘This is devastating news! The best show on the radio by far’.
‘Frank’s is the only show that our radio changes from 6Music for. Shame’; ‘It is the only show I actually listen to regularly, on purpose and with utter joy’; ‘Ah no… didn’t know it was over with. A great show & part of my night-time listening on the weekend. Will miss the gang’.
‘Very sad news, it was the only reason to listen to Absolute radio. Please pass on my best wishes. Xxx’; ‘I’m absolutely disgusted! One of the funniest, most relatable people on the radio. Heads should roll at Absolute for this. Come back to us, Frank, Emily & Pierre via another station. You’re loved’.
Others suggested perhaps Frank could move elsewhere as they wrote: ‘Perhaps he could take Graham Nortons virgin slot?’; ‘B****y hell! That’s ruined my Saturday. Surely @GaryLineker can find a space in his @GoalhangerPods empire to allow the show to continue as a pod?!’; ‘time for a podcast?’
Last April Frank was appointed an MBE by the Princess Royal, Anne, for his services to entertainment.
He joked that upon receiving notice of his honour, he thought there may have been an ‘administrative error’.
‘I deal mainly in laughs and applause and they disappear into the air quite quickly.’
Frank met David Baddiel on the comedy circuit and they began sharing a flat, and re-created their matey lifestyle on the TV show Fantasy Football League (pictured in 1997)
Frank was born in West Bromwich in 1957 and raised in a council house. He was expelled from school at 16 and worked in the local foundry ‘hammering lumps of metal into shape’, but hated it so much that he went to night classes, gaining A-levels, an English degree and finally an MA.
He then worked as a teacher while trying stand-up comedy on the side. His first gig was at Birmingham Anglers Association – ‘I died on my a**e,’ he once said.
But in 1991 he beat Eddie Izzard and Jack Dee to the prestigious Perrier Award for best stand-up at the Edinburgh Festival. His real name is Chris Collins, but there was already one in Equity, the actors’ union, so he borrowed the name Frank Skinner from a member of his father’s pub dominoes team.
He met David Baddiel on the circuit and although they made an unlikely pairing – the working-class Catholic and the Jewish Cambridge graduate – they loved books, chat and football.
They began sharing a flat, and re-created their matey lifestyle on the TV show Fantasy Football League. Their song Three Lions was written with Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds for the Euro 96 tournament and it became an anthem of English football, making No 1 in the charts twice that year and again in 1998 and 2018.
He went on to host BBC comedy series Room 101 from 2012 to 2018 and last summer he took his own show 30 Years Of Dirt to the Edinburgh Fringe.
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