Melbourne radio hosts Lauren Phillips and Jason Hawkins couldn’t hide their frustration as a bus emblazoned with the faces of their radio rivals crashed their show this week.
Sydney-based media titans Kyle and Jackie O made their controversial entry onto the Melbourne airwaves this week on KIIS FM.
Jase and Lauren had also been with KIIS, but were axed last November to make way for Kyle and Jackie O. Phillips broke down during their final show, revealing they’d learned they were getting the boot just hours earlier.
Settling into their new home at Nova 100, the duo were disappointed when a “Kyle and Jackie O” promotional bus crashed their outdoor listener event this week.
Thanking those who’d come out to support them at the event, many of whom had followed them on their move between radio networks, Jase also called out the “giant Kyle and Jackie-O bus going around Melbourne at the moment.”
“It’s pretty poor form, though, to turn up to our event,” said Lauren.
“Because I mean, they fired us. We haven’t done anything wrong to them. They got rid of us, told us we weren’t good enough. And now they’re turning up to where we’re standing there with the people that love our show and listen to our show, and trying to sabotage that. It’s a bit tasteless,” she said.
Jase said that, while he was “all up for” a cheeky radio stunt, crashing their show felt like “bully-like behaviour. It’s like, you shafted us.”
Lauren was also careful not lay blame with Kyle and Jackie O directly, saying she wouldn’t have thought the duo themselves were behind the stunt.
“I don’t think that that’s something that they would really be interested in doing,” she suggested.
Newsreader Clint Stanaway, who came with Jase and Lauren to Nova, called the stunt “puerile and embarrassing” and noted that the bus received a reaction from their listeners that was “something to behold.”
“We did have to hold them back and say, ‘Don’t give them flat tires, because then they’re gonna be stuck here,’” said Lauren.
Jase and Lauren made their return to the airwaves in March this year, opening their first show at Nova by hitting out at how their former employer handled their firing.
“It was pretty personal for me, on a number of scales,” Jase said.
“I had good friends that were working behind the scenes in my management. I knew people at the old radio station who were quite high up. And yes, it was pretty personal.
“It was a really s**t feeling last year. It really was.”
Meanwhile, Kyle and Jackie O launched into Melbourne this week with a particularly crude opening show that included, in its first hour, discussion of “anal sex, incest, and freakishly long foreskins.”
At least one person was not a fan: Radio veteran Steve Price blasted the pair on The Project that night, addressing them directly to say: “That garbage you put to air this morning, sexualised rubbish, toxic, nobody should listen to it and you will be a massive failure in Melbourne.”