Melbourne radio stars who were fired to make way for Kyle and Jackie have revealed they have considered fleeing the country.
Late last year, they were “broken” and on the verge of fleeing the country after being fired by KIIS FM.
Now broadcast on Nova Radio they are Melbourne’s most listened to breakfast show.
The couple spoke about their stunning change in fortunes in an exclusive interview with news.com.au.
Jess Hawkins and Lauren Phillips. Photo: Jake Nowakowski
Deleted by KIIS FM
Jess and Lauren suffered a major blow in November last year when they were told over the phone that the KIIS 101.1 breakfast show, which they had hosted together since 2021, He was being fired..
ARN, which owns KIIS FM, has decided to scrap 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 hard.
“I was so sad,” she told news.com.au.
“I thought this was the end of my radio career.
“Late last year, I was ready to leave the country and move abroad. I said to myself, ‘I’m leaving here.’”
“I felt lost in the world,” she said.
Jess was also very upset.
“I wasn’t angry that we were scammed, that’s the industry,” he told news.com.au.
Instead, he was upset with the way the radio network handled the whole situation, and the impact it had on his co-workers.
“I hated it.” who “It was their experience on the radio, and how they were treated,” he said.
“This really, really bothered me.”
Kyle and Jackie O are now broadcasting in Melbourne and Sydney, with rumours that Brisbane and Adelaide are next.
Nova to the rescue
At the end of 2023, Jess, 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 Revive their breakfast program.
“It happened very quickly and started with a really honest conversation between the three of us (the co-hosts),” Jess told news.com.au.
“We sat down together and said, ‘Let’s talk about this, see how we feel, and if it’s not right for us, let’s all walk away.’”
Lauren admits she was a little hesitant at first.
“It had a really bad taste in my mouth and I was scared it would happen again,” she said.
“We believed in each other and we believed in ourselves, but we were taking a product that we were told (by ARN) wasn’t good enough.”
Those initial hesitations disappeared after a face-to-face meeting with Nova’s leaders.
“We didn’t have to sell ourselves to the Nova executives,” Lauren said.
“They said, ‘We’ve been listening to your show, we love you three, we want you guys.’
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s someone who really wants us and thinks we’re good!’”
“That was a real transformation for me,” she said. “I felt like these people really believed in us, so let’s do this.”
Jess Hawkins, Lauren Phillips and Clint Stanaway in their Nova studio. Photo: Courtesy of/Nova
The radio war has begun.
When Jess and Lauren signed with Nova, it added another exciting element to what was already being called the ‘Melbourne 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 whether the Sydney-based duo could take on Melbourne’s top two morning shows – Fox FM’s Fifi, Fev and Nickand Gold FM’s The Christian O’Connell Show.
There was also interest in how Jess and Lauren would go up against Kyle and Jackie O, the show that was ultimately responsible for their ouster from KIIS FM.
Jess and Lauren went on air on Nova 100 on March 8, with Kyle and Jackie O entering the Melbourne market on April 29.
The so-called “war” started badly when Kyle and Jackie O sent a promotional bus covered in pictures of their faces to one of Jess and Lauren’s first Nova listening events.
At the time, Lauren described the stunt as “a bit tasteless”, while Jess accused Kyle of “bully-like behavior”.
Not happy, Jan. Photo: David Crossling
Speaking to news.com.au, all these months later, Jess said: “I think the behaviour of that camp (Kyle and Jackie O) could have been a lot better.”
Not long after the bus disaster, Jess and Lauren made a conscious decision to be the “bigger person” and ignore their radio rivals.
Instead, the Nova hosts focused on their own show, guided by two simple slogans.
“Rude, not bad, that pretty much sums us up,” Lauren said.
“And a little bit of intelligence with heart,” Jess added.
“What I mean by that is I love when we can mess around and have some fun with the stupid stuff and then it goes to a commercial break, the news, and then it comes back and we might have a very serious conversation with a mom who had a kid overdose at a festival and she’s passionate about testing pills in Victoria.”
And the winner is?
Listeners clearly love what Jess and Lauren are doing, because they did amazingly well in the last round of Radio Reviews Which was released last week.
Nova gained 56,000 new listeners and now holds the title of ‘Melbourne’s most listened to morning show’.
Their show also overtook Fox FMFifi, Fev and Nick to become the second best rated FM breakfast show overall behind Gold FM’s Christian O’Connell.
The epic result had Jess in tears.
“I personally was very emotional,” he told news.com.au.
“After everything we’ve been through, having an audience that follows you from station to station is a huge and very personal thing.
“I honestly felt for the first time that we belonged here.”
Jess and Lauren’s stunning result came as a shock to ARN bosses who fired them last year, especially as Kyle and Jackie O failed to impress in the radio ratings.
KIIS FM presenters managed to attract 48,000 new listeners, but failed to climb the overall ratings.
They are currently the sixth highest rated FM breakfast show with a 5.9 per cent audience share, compared to Jess and Lorraine’s 9.6 per cent share.
Here’s who’s winning the Melbourne radio war.
“We have had a lot of good friends at KIIS FM reach out to congratulate us,” Jess said of the recent ratings.
“They saw for themselves how we were treated and were very happy for us.”
When asked why their radio show is such a hit with listeners, Jess told news.com.au: “I think there are a lot of shows out there that are trying to compete with each other and they’re not really showing their true selves.”
“There is absolutely no nonsense in our show,” he said.
“Everything is true. Everything is real.
“Melbourne is a smart city, and personally, I think other stations take this city for granted or don’t really understand what people here really want.
“It’s not just about stunts and throwing money in the air and things like that,” he said.
“People want to know what’s really going on in this city and talk about what’s really affecting them on their way to school.”
The next round of radio ratings will be released on August 27, with many industry insiders wondering if Jess and Lauren will finally be able to overtake Christian O’Connell to become Melbourne’s number one FM breakfast show.
“Honestly, we don’t look at the numbers,” Jess told news.com.au.
“I know this sounds like a typical radio speech, but honestly, we focus every day on ‘Let’s put on a good show today.’”
