"To tell you the truth, because I was there for 15 years ... I started off on a reasonable sum and got the, you know, 2 per cent added on each year."

Mitchell then asked if Symons was ever told his departure was to do with the controversial Beverly Wang interview. The former Hey Hey It's Saturday star replied: "No."

"It was a rhetorical question, are you yellow, but it was never reported that way," he said. "This amused me. I did say to the two producers I worked with when this thing was to come out: You see, by the end of the week Andrew Bolt will have defended me. And he did.

"I just turned off. I don't read endless Twitter feeds. In the context of doing radio, I would get, every day, a text message from a person or persons criticising me. You get used to it."

Symons went on to say he doesn't listen to his replacements – comedian Sami Shah and former 3RRR presenter Jacinta Parsons – and wasn't sure why he was asked to share the microphone or take a less prominent role given his ratings were solid.

"It's very clear in the commercial [radio] environment what the objectives are and what the measure is," he said. "At the ABC... it's intellectual of some sort.

"They did a rubber stamp around all the breakfast programs in metros Australia where they had a boy and a girl, a man and a woman together as a duo because for whatever reason they thought that's how you did it."

As for what his future holds, Symons dodged a question about whether he was chasing a job at his former commercial rival given he still wakes up at 4am and likes to tune into Ross Stevenson and John Burns' top-rating breakfast program. 3AW staff have been told it's likely Burns will retire at the end of the year.

"I don't have anything like the lustful ambition I had when I was 28 or 38," Symons said. "But I've continued to potter."