Hamish Blake and Andy Lee have announced that their daily radio show will come to a close at the end of the year, with the Austereo comedy duo indicating that they intend to cut back their radio commitments to one programme per week.

In a statement released this afternoon, Blake and Lee said that their decision to end their weekday broadcasts of Hamish & Andy was driven by a desire to pursue other opportunities, having turned down numerous offers in the five years that the show has been on air.

"Many ideas have been put on the backburner over the last five years as they couldn’t work in conjunction with daily radio," Lee said. "We thought 2011 was a good time to put some of those ideas on the front-burner."

Hamish & Andy will continue to air in its 4pm-6pm timeslot until 27 November this year. It is not yet known when Austereo stations will begin broadcasting the weekly version of the programme.

The pair have committed to staying at the Austereo Radio Network for at least the next two years. In their statement, Blake and Lee said that "the idea of giving up the show completely was never considered as it is the most fun in the world".

As previously reported in TSR, Blake and Lee had already flagged the possibility of paring back their radio commitments. It is now likely that the duo will seek to spend more time in television, having already inked a deal earlier this year to produce a series of specials for the Ten Network.

The first of those specials, Hamish and Andy's Caravan of Courage, was a major ratings success, attracting 1.749 million viewers when it aired in June.

Media Spy discussion: Hamish and Andy