“I gave it six months.” How Clint Stanaway fell in love with radio

When Clint Stanaway was seventeen, he was convinced his future lay in television.

By the time he was hired as a newsreader when the Jase & Lauren Breakfast Show first launched on Melbourne’s KIIS 101.1 in 2021, Stanaway had already carved himself a successful career at Channel Nine.

He saw his new radio role as little more than a short-term sideline gig.

“Hand on heart, (I) gave it six months,” Stanaway tells Stellar.

“I saw it as a chance to make some extra cash and to hang out with one of my best mates, Lauren (Phillips). And then I’d probably bail on it.”

Axed by ARN to make way for Kyle & Jackie O’s infamous entry into the Melbourne Breakfast radio market, the Jase & Lauren Show was snapped up by Nova.

The recent renaming the show to Jase, Lauren & Clint reinforces the fact Stanaway was never ‘just’ the newsreader.

Stanaway, however, says being a trained journo offers a real point of difference.

“It’s a part of my skill set that’s been very transferable – particularly when I’m doing interviews on air, where that really shines.”

As Christian O’Connell works to make inroads with his new Sydney audience and ARN rolls out rotating guest co-hosts on KIIS Breakfast following the demise of the Kyle & Jackie O Show, the radio goal posts have not shifted for Hawkins, Phillips and Stanaway.

Reflecting on how the Nova brekky show managed to  forge ahead during a volatile period, Stanaway simply says:

“We’ve always run our own race.”

The Jase, Lauren & Clint show can be heard 6am to 9am weekdays on Melbourne’s Nova 100 and the Nova Player, and from 8am to 10am on weekends across the national Nova Network.

Image: Instagram