Ben Fordham has signed a new long-term contract to remain host of 2GB Breakfast, sealing a five-year multimillion-dollar agreement with the network after previously casting doubt on whether he would stay in the role.

“My news is that I am going to be waking up for the next five years at 3.15am” he told The Daily Telegraph.

The agreement came after direct intervention from 2GB’s new owners, Arthur and Craig Laundy, who bought the Nine Entertainment station in January. Fordham said the pair made a proposal he could not turn down.

“They said ‘we don’t want to buy the business and then find you’re walking away’,” the host said.

“I said to them ‘well you should make me an offer that is too good to refuse’, and they did.”

Fordham said his relationship with the Laundys, especially Arthur, played a major part in his decision to stay.

“I’ve got a very special relationship with Arthur,” he said

“So naturally you don’t want to let someone like that down. Looking into his eyes I could tell he didn’t want me to go.

“I also love the job, and I knew that I would miss this job about five minutes after finishing it.

“Yes, it’s full on and it’s unrelenting and it’s all consuming, but I also bloody love it.”

The 49-year-old said his uncertainty had never been about passion for the program, but about the physical strain of the schedule and the effect of poor sleep on his health.

“It is not a case of not loving it, it’s just a question of is it the best thing for your health to be waking up at 3.15am and going to bed sometimes at 10 or 11 o’clock at night,” he said.

“3.15am is not a time that normal people want to wake up, but I do love getting into it and attacking the day.”

He said he had seriously considered stepping away for a break or moving into something completely different, but those closest to him strongly opposed the idea.

“I was contemplating taking some time out or doing something different, but when I started talking to the people I love about it they all thought it was the dumbest idea they had ever heard, including the kids,” he said.

“I said (to the kids), ‘but I can spend more time with you’ and they were like ‘yeah but we see you all the time anyway.”

His new commitment marks a sharp contrast with comments he made in October last year, when he told The Sunday Telegraph he “wouldn’t mind working at The Fordham Company”, a reference to his family’s talent management business.

Fordham described breakfast radio as demanding and ever-changing, but said that constant uncertainty is part of what makes it a fit for him.

“Sometimes you go in thinking this is what I am going to be doing today and then the world dishes up something entirely different and the whole show changes on the spot,” he said.

“The unpredictability is what drives me and it suits me.

“I am thinking about the show most of the time I am awake.”

Even with the fresh deal in place, Fordham said he is not looking at breakfast radio as a forever job. For now, he said, his attention remains on the “bread and butter of radio”.

“For now, I am going to focus on the bread and butter of radio, but I don’t want to do it forever,” he said.

“I am not going to be one of these people who dies behind the microphone.”

The value of the new contract has not been disclosed, though Fordham was reportedly earning $1.5 million a year under his previous agreement.

Tapt Media chief executive Tom Malone said management at 2GB were thrilled to retain him.

“We are delighted to be extending his tenure at 2GB beyond two decades,” Mr Malone said.

“Ben Fordham is one of the greatest broadcasters this country has seen.”