The real reason why Abbie Chatfield quit her popular radio show

Abbie Chatfield surprised her fans on Thursday when she announced that she had quit her national radio show, Hot Nights With Abbie Chatfield, a year and a half after it first launched.

The 28-year-old media personality shared a three-minute video on Instagram explaining that she would be prioritising her podcast and TV projects going forward while also enjoying a more balanced lifestyle away from work.

“I’m really happy with my decision and super proud of myself for letting this role go. I simply need to put my energy into projects that bring me joy and that energise me, rather than draining me,” she said.

However, Yahoo Lifestyle can reveal there’s much more behind Abbie's decision to walk away from the lucrative Hit Network evening show than what she has revealed.

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Since launching the show in January 2022, Abbie’s podcast It’s A Lot has suffered as a result of her “mining her life for content” across too many platforms - with it consistently losing listeners and downloads.

In February 2022, It’s A Lot was the 8th biggest podcast in Australia with 287,000 listeners and 731,000 downloads that month.

Yet by April 2023, after 14 months of doing her evening radio show alongside the podcast, It’s A Lot had dropped to the 21st biggest podcast in Australia with 206,000 listeners and 490,000 downloads that month.

Things only appeared to show signs of turning around last month when Abbie took weeks off the radio show to contemplate its future but still shared eight new episodes of It’s A Lot, which resulted in the podcast climbing back up the charts to number 18.

'Much more freedom'

A media source tells Yahoo Lifestyle: “It’s A Lot is Abbie’s biggest passion project and seeing it consistently drop wasn’t something she took lightly - especially seeing the gap widen between her podcast and Life Uncut, which is seen as her biggest rival.”

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The insider adds that It’s A Lot also allows Abbie “much more freedom to discuss anything she wants, no matter how controversial” compared to a commercial radio show, where she often felt “restricted” and “clashed” with producers and radio bosses about “appealing to advertisers and a broader audience”.

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