In the space of seven months, Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips have pulled off one of the biggest “f**k yous” in recent radio history.
Late last year they were “broken” and were close to fleeing the country after being sacked by KIIS FM.
Now, they’re broadcasting on Nova and are the most-listened to breakfast radio show in Melbourne.
The pair opened up about their incredible change of fortune in an exclusive interview with news.com.au.
Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips. Picture: Jake Nowakowski
Axed by KIIS FM
Jase and Lauren were dealt an almighty blow in November last year when they were told over the phone their KIIS 101.1 breakfast show, which they’d been hosting together since 2021, was being axed.
ARN, the company that owns KIIS FM, had decided to ditch The Jase and Lauren Show and replace it in 2024 with The Kyle and Jackie O Show, which also airs on KIIS FM in Sydney.
Lauren took the news the hardest.
“I was gutted,” she told news.com.au.
“I thought that was the end of my radio career.
“Late last year I was ready to leave the country and move overseas. I was like, ‘I’m out of here’.
“I felt pretty lost in the world,” she said.
Jase was also pretty upset.
“I wasn’t angry that we got shafted, that’s the industry,” he told news.com.au.
Instead, he was upset with how the radio network handled the whole situation, and the effect it had on his workmates.
“I hated that that was their experience in radio, and how they were treated,” he said.
“That really, really shat me.”
Kyle and Jackie O now broadcast in Melbourne and Sydney, with rumours Brisbane and Adelaide are next.
Nova to the rescue
At the end of 2023, Jase, Lauren, and their co-host, Clint Stanaway, thought their radio careers were over.
But just a few months later, in early 2024, the trio received a phone call from Nova 100 who told them they were interested in reviving their breakfast show.
“It happened very quickly and it started with a really honest conversation between the three of us (co-hosts),” Jase told news.com.au.
“We sat down together and said, ‘let’s have a chat about this, see how it feels, and if it doesn’t feel right for us, let’s all just walk away’”.
Lauren admits she had some hesitations at first.
“I had a pretty bad taste in my mouth and I was scared of that happening again,” she said.
“We believed in each other and we believed in ourselves, but we were taking a product that we had been told (by ARN) wasn’t good enough.”
Those initial hesitations disappeared after a face-to-face meeting with the Nova bosses.
“We didn’t have to sell ourselves to the execs at Nova,” Lauren said.
“They told us, ‘we’ve been listening to your show, we love the three of you, we want you guys.’
“I thought, ‘oh my god, someone actually wants us and thinks we’re good!’
“That was a real shift for me,” she said. “I was like, these people really believe in us, so let’s do it.”
Jase Hawkins, Lauren Phillips and Clint Stanaway in their Nova studio. Picture: Supplied/Nova
Radio war begins
When Jase and Lauren signed with Nova, it added another juicy element to what was already being dubbed “Melbourne’s radio war”.
At the start of the year, there was an incredible amount of interest in how Victorians would respond to The Kyle and Jackie O Show, and if the Sydney-based pair could out-rate the top two FM breakfast shows in Melbourne – Fox FM’s Fifi, Fev and Nickand Gold FM’s The Christian O’Connell Show.
There was also interest in how Jase and Lauren would stack up against Kyle and Jackie O, the show that was ultimately responsible for them getting axed from KIIS FM.
Jase and Lauren started on air on Nova 100 on March 8, with Kyle and Jackie O entering the Melbourne market on April 29.
The so-called “war” got off to a nasty start when Kyle and Jackie O sent a promotional bus covered with pictures of their faces to one of Jase and Lauren’s first Nova listener events.
At the time, Lauren called the stunt “a bit tasteless”, while Jase accused Kyle of “bully-like behaviour”.
Not happy, Jan. Picture: David Crosling
Reflecting on the incident all these months later, Jase told news.com.au: “I think the behaviour from that camp (Kyle and Jackie O) could have been so much better.”
Not long after the bus fiasco, Jase and Lauren made a conscious decision to be “the bigger person” and ignore their radio rivals.
The Nova hosts instead focused on their own show which is guided by two simple mottos.
“Cheeky, not nasty, that pretty much sums us up,” Lauren said.
“And ‘a bit of smart with heart,’” Jase added.
“What I mean by that is, I love when we can be mucking around and having the silliest content and then you go to an ad break, the news, and then you come back and we might have the most serious chat with a mum who had a kid overdose at a festival and she’s passionate about pill testing in Victoria.”
And the winner is?
Listeners are clearly loving what Jase and Lauren are doing, because they absolutely smashed it in the latest round of radio ratings which were released last week.
The Nova show gained 56,000 new listeners and now holds the title of ‘the most listened to breakfast show in Melbourne’.
They also leapfrogged Fox FM’s Fifi, Fev and Nick to become the second highest rated FM breakfast show overall behind Gold FM’s Christian O’Connell.
The epic result moved Jase to tears.
“I personally was quite emotional,” he told news.com.au.
“After everything we went through, to have an audience actually follow you from one station to another is quite big and personal.
“I honestly felt like for the first time, we belong.”
Jase and Lauren’s incredible result was a bit of a “f**k you” to the ARN bosses who axed them last year, especially because Kyle and Jackie O failed to impress in the radio ratings.
The KIIS FM hosts did pick up 48,000 new listeners, but failed to move up in the overall ratings.
They’re currently the sixth highest rated FM breakfast show with a 5.9 per cent audience share, compared to Jase and Lauren’s 9.6 per cent share.
Here’s who’s winning Melbourne’s radio war.
“We had a lot of good mates over at KIIS FM reach out and say congratulations,” Jase said about the recent ratings.
“They saw first-hand how we were treated and they were so bloody happy for us.”
When asked why their radio show seems to be resonating with listeners, Jase told news.com.au: “I think there’s a lot of shows out there trying to compete with each other and they’re not actually being their genuine self.”
“There’s absolutely no bulls**t with our show,” he said.
“Everything is honest. Everything is true.
“Melbourne’s a smart city, and personally, I think other stations are taking this city for granted or don’t really understand what people actually want here.
“It’s not all about stunts and throwing cash in the air and stuff like that,” he said.
“People want to know what the hell’s actually going on in this city and talk about what’s actually affecting them on their run to school.”
The next round of radio ratings will be released on August 27, with many industry insiders wondering if Jase and Lauren can eventually overtake Christian O’Connell to become the number one FM breakfast show in Melbourne.
“Honestly, we are not looking at the numbers,” Jase told news.com.au
“I know that sounds like a typical radio bulls**t line, but honestly, each day we’re just focused on ‘let’s do a good show today.’”
Originally published as Brutal fallout after Jase and Lauren were axed from KIIS FM
