Frank Skinner‘s final show with Absolute Radio was aired on Saturday after the veteran radio host was axed by the station, having been with the company for 15 years.
The broadcaster and comedian, 67, revealed he was being let go in a pre-recorded show in March, admitting he had not taken the news well.
He hosted his final The Frank Skinner Show on Saturday alongside co-hosts Emily Dean and Pierre Novellie, and also hosts Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast, which will continue for two more series.
During the final moments of his broadcast, Skinner told listeners, “I shall miss you”, adding: “You have been the fourth member of the team.
“I am sorry we are leaving you guys. It is pretty well-documented I don’t want to go… But I am leaving.”
He then joked he had spent his “redundancy money on Lego Avengers”, saying the hobby would “take me through to eternity.”
Skinner began to get emotional, saying: “You have been the best audience. I cannot do the ‘We will be back next week,’ because we won’t. We’ll never be back.”
Dean could be heard crying in the background as the programme was played out with Elton John’s hit-balled Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The presenter has been on Absolute Radio since 2009 and was inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame in December 2015.
Fans posted heartfelt messages on X, formerly Twitter, with one listener saying they were “bracing for the huge loss to [Absolute Radio] – nay, radio full stop.”
Another posted: “So emotional listening to #FrankSkinner and Co’s final moments on their @absoluteradio breakfast show. Well I don’t think Absolute realise what a catastrophe this will be for them. Frank’s a national treasure.”
Announcing his departure from Absolute Radio in March, Skinner told listeners how the news was broken to him: “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! 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 others, we’ve got some notice to serve.
He added: “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 well in the way David Tennant took it well as the tenth Doctor when he started to regenerate and said: ‘I don’t want to go!’”
Paul Sylvester, Absolute Radio’s content director said at the time: “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.”
Skinner – whose real name is Christopher Graham Collins – has been touring with his acclaimed show 30 Years of Dirt, heading to Milton Keynes, Brighton, Leeds and other venues in April, with more dates in May and June at other venues.
In August the show will return to the West End for a limited three-week run, it was recently announced.
Skinner was made an MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours list, where he was recognised for his services to entertainment.
He began his live stand-up career in 1987 when he tried his hand as a comic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
He returned to the festival to scoop one of comedy’s most prestigious prizes – the Perrier Award – four years after his first performance.
Alongside fellow comic and screenwriter David Baddiel, Skinner makes up one half of Baddiel and Skinner, the duo behind TV programmes Fantasy Football and Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned.
His TV work includes creating and hosting three series of Frank Skinner’s Opinionated for BBC Two, presenting multiple series of BBC One’s Room 101 and Portrait/Landscape Artist of the Year for Sky Arts.
He has also presented documentaries for the BBC on Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley and the life of actor and musician George Formby.