Lewi McKirdy leaves FBi Radio after just 3 months as manager

Lewi McKirdy was appointed to the role of Managing Director at Sydney youth community station FBi Radio in June, but has left after just 3 months.

The station quietly appointed him to replace outgoing MD Nikki Brogan on 18 June, with only an internal memo to announce his arrival in the position, and communicated his departure in the same way today. An email to volunteers from station president Cass Wilkinson said:

The Management Committee would like to let you know that on Friday we accepted Lewi McKirdy’s resignation as Managing Director.

 

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to him for his time with us and wish him well in his next endeavours. As a former volunteer, broadcaster and member of staff Lewi remains a valued member of our FBi family. His last day was Monday, 27 September 2021.

 

FBi Radio has had a tumultuous 18 months with multiple staff leaving and cost cutting due to a dramatic revenue fall. The station is highly dependent on live music sponsorship and events revenue which has drastically declined during the covid lockdowns. Volunteers are mostly prerecording their shows from home during the pandemic.

Lewi McKirdy volunteered at FBi before joining triple j as a producer in 2009 and moving to host triple j’s lunch time shift in 2011, replacing Vijay Khurana. See our coverage of Lewi’s time at triple j here. Lewi is the grandson of former ABC Radio presenter Arch McKirdy.

After leaving triple j Lewi moved to the UK, working as Assistant Manager at community station Reprezent Radio, then joining the BBC as a Studio Manager.

In January this year he caught Covid while in London, giving the news to his 31,600 Instagram followers by reading out the quarantine letter in a video post. He recovered and moved back to Australia shortly afterwards.

 


 

 

Mike Curcuruto will take on the role of acting manager while FBi seeks a replacement for McKirdy.

 

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