‘Not playing in the gutter’: How the secret plan to get The Jase & Lauren Show to Nova was hatched

Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips celebrated joining Nova100 as new breakfast hosts with a “box of goon” as Melbourne’s breakfast radio wars heat up amid the pending arrival of Kyle Sandilands.

Lauren Phillips and Jase Hawkins are excited to return to the airwaves “very soon”. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips have pulled radio’s ultimate Houdini act.

After being brutally dumped by KIIS FM, where they hosted the Melbourne breakfast shift, in December to make way for Kyle Sandilands’ networked show from Sydney, it seemed like the much loved Jase and Lauren Show was being consigned to radio history.

Hawkins was considering a move to Queensland with his family and Phillips and her fiance, Paul O’Brien, were also pondering taking time away from Melbourne.

But in a move that has taken the radio industry by surprise and delighted fans, the show is being reborn in the breakfast shift at Nova100.

Hawkins said there was no bitterness between himself and Sandilands – who will be his new Melbourne breakfast rival when both shows launch into the market – following the December KIIS coup.

Sandilands was one of the first to contact Hawkins – his former housemate – on Friday when the Nova deal was announced and offer his congratulations.

Lauren Phillips and Jase Hawkins are joining Nova after they were replaced as the KIIS FM Melbourne breakfast team in December 2023 to make way for Kyle Sandilands to network his show from Sydney. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“We are not looking at it as a war between us two (him and Sandilands),” Hawkins said in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald Sun.

“We are doing our own thing and they are doing their Sydney thing.

“I want to do it with our head held high. We are not playing in the gutter.

“Some people have done that when we got the boot last year and we are just not playing in that area.

“We are focused on our show and the audience, having fun and getting this dysfunctional family back together.”

The Jase and Lauren Show will debut “soon” on Nova100, replacing the Ben, Liam & Belle show that will move to a national 6pm – 8-pm ‘late drive’ shift.

Hawkins said the deal to get him and Phillips to Nova happened “only recently and it happened very fast.”

Added Phillips: “When I got the call I was like ‘Oh boy’ and I called him and he was like ‘Oh boy’. I think I had dreamt we would get this show back together, but obviously it is a very busy landscape in radio here in Melbourne at the moment.”

Hawkins still had a year to go on his contract with KIIS when the show was axed. Phillips was out of contract.

He was let go from that contract, opening the door for him to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

His gift to Phillips to celebrate their signing with Nova was to bring a “box of goon” around to her home.

Lauren Phillips and Jase Hawkins aregrateful for all of the support they received since losing their show on KIIS but are now looking forward. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“You probably could not get two more people,” he chuckled.

“It was a box of cask wine and he had stuck a Veuve (up-market champagne) label over it. I said, ‘I did not know Veuve came in a box’.”

The pair are thrilled, energised and excited about their second chance.

“The show is live from Melbourne, it is going to focus on what people in this city want to hear and talk about, we are going to be very engaged with our audience, which is what we always tried to do,” Phillips said.

“We have been so grateful for the support we have had over the last few months.”

“This is not about changing things. We just want to continue what we started,” Hawkins said.

The pain of having a show, that was growing strongly at KIIS and rating a 9 share of the audience, so ruthlessly axed is still felt by Hawkins and Phillips.

“We were gutted,” Hawkins said.

“I always kept saying to Lauren, ‘you don’t know how rare it is to have this relationship with the team.’ I have done this for 27 years and it is so rare to have that.

“So that is why, I think, it hurt so much when they said they were axing the show for one from Sydney.”

Phillips said she believe the Jase and Lauren Show was “just getting started” when they had the rug pulled from beneath them at KIIS.

“We were really engaging with our audience in a great way and we loved our listeners. It was such a nice place to be. To be cut off at that time, of course it hurt, it was an awful time for us,” she said.

“We just felt we had so much more to give.

“This opportunity has now come about and put the pieces back together.

“We are so grateful that Nova believed in us. This is the first step in hopefully a very long relationship here with Nova.”

Hawkins said the Nova deal had come at the perfect time.

“My boys sat me down the other day and they said ‘Dad, it is time to get a job’.”