Ronan Keating bid an emotional farewell to listeners as he signed off from his Magic Radio breakfast show for the last time.
The Boyzone singer, 47, announced last month that he was hanging up his headphones after seven years to spend more time with his family.
During his last show on Wednesday Keating treated listeners to a special performance of his hits Life is a Rollercoaster and When You Say Nothing At All, as well as covering George Michael’s Faith.
As he finished the show, he was embraced by co-host Harriet Scott and then walked out of the studio to find colleagues from Magic Radio and sister stations across parent company Bauer Media lining the corridors to applaud him as he exited the building.
Opening up about his decision to quit to the Standard, Keating admitted that he had become “exhausted” by the early morning commitment and wants to make music his main focus again.He explained: “I’ve decided to stand down because it has been hard to balance making music and being creative and all of that alongside doing radio. I want to get back to doing that full-time.
“When I leave Magic at 10am in the morning it’s pretty exhausting, you know, you give four hours of yourself, you give all of that energy and the rest of the day you’re exhausted. Even when you take a holiday from it, you’re trying to catch up on yourself for a couple of weeks.
“For me, I need a bit of time off and then I need to go and focus on writing music and continuing my live performances and so on.
“I’ve learnt so much about it from the other side of the desk where I’d been for 25 years beforehand to now be the interviewer and to be the broadcaster. It has been incredible.”
He added that he wouldn’t rule out a potential return in the future, teasing: “Maybe on a weekend basis”.
