The Sunday Telegraph speculates that John Laws may be planning a comeback, on 2SM. Although he has been seen in the 2SM building, Laws is still bound by an exclusion clause from his previous 2UE contract and the speculation is likely to be premature.
One source has told radioinfo that Laws’ manager, John Fordham, is shopping Laws around to see what interest there is and to determine if 2UE will enforce its contract if he decided to do something else.
The Telegraph says 2SM’s Bill Caralis would not discuss any possible contract but did say:
“I have an awful lot of time for John Laws, and a lot of respect. As far as I’m concerned, he is still the king of radio.”
When contacted by radioinfo, the Caralis Supernetwork would only respond with a polite “no comment” at this time.
John Fordham has confirmed to radioinfo that he was quoted accurately in the Telegraph saying:
“Since John retired from 2UE two years ago, there have been various discussions from time to time with interested radio industry groups. But they haven’t progressed to the point of whether he’s made a firm decision to return to radio.”
Industry speculation goes along the following lines:
Laws is bored and would like to do something on air, but is constrained to offer his services to 2UE under the terms of a three year exclusion clause on his previous contract.
It is believed that 2UE has not responded eagerly to any proposed return, even to a short weekly program.
The next likely option for Laws would be 2GB, and it is believed that exploratory talks with that station may have gone nowhere. This may also explain why Laws was dumped from a panned interview on the morning show last week and later was quoted in a Daily Telegraph article slamming 2GB (our Hot off the Press section has a link to that article).
The final commercial talk option for a bored Mr Laws to try would then be 2SM. The 2SM Supernetwork had great success with the Laws program on many of its regional stations and it could make economic sense for 2SM to bring him back if the price was right.