Jase & Lauren: “It’s been really sad for us watching a lot of our ARN friends lose their jobs”

Many wouldn’t blame Jase Hawkins, Lauren Phillips and Clint Stanaway one little bit if they felt smug about Kyle and Jackie O’s failure to fire in Melbourne so far.

But Phillips insists they’re not gloating about it.

“We just focus so much on ourselves as opposed to what anybody else is doing,” she says.

“Also, when we see a show having a hard time, what comes with that is a lot of consequences to other people.”

Phillips was responding to questions from The Brag Media’s Head of Content Lars Brandle at Cairns Crocodiles, a three day advertising and marketing conference last week where she, Hawkins and Stanaway were keynote speakers, covering topics of resilience, reinvention and ratings success.

The Jase & Lauren story is the stuff radio fairytales are made of.

Within months of losing their jobs to make way for K & J’s expansion into Melbourne on KIIS 101.1, Hawkins, Phillips and Stanaway were snapped up to host Nova 100’s Breakfast show.

If it were a footy game, it would go down as one of the plays of the decade.

Just a few months later, Jase & Lauren were Melbourne’s #1 FM Breakfast show, while the city gave K & J the cold shoulder.

In the latest GfK survey, Jase & Lauren was the most listened to FM Breakfast show, with a cume of 662,000.

Cause for celebration? Well, yes. But Phillips says she, Hawkins and Stanaway are not – and will never be – the sort of people who are going to lord it over the opposition and dine out on other people’s lack of success.

“It would be stupid of anyone to celebrate Kyle and Jackie O not doing well in Melbourne, given their success over the years and their success in Sydney.”

“They’re a powerhouse show that lasted in this industry for so long and I think anyone would be really silly to think that these things come really easily.”

Phillips also addressed continuing industry uncertainty and job losses.

“It’s been really sad for us watching a lot of our friends lose their jobs along the way at ARN in Melbourne as well, and the downsizing of the team,” she said.

Also at the conference was Wade Kingsley from the Game Changers Radio: Melbourne Radio Wars podcast.

With the Jase & Lauren team still in contact with their former ARN Melbourne colleagues, Kingsley told of the empathy Hawkins, Phillips and Stanaway displayed.

“Jase and Lauren and Clint worked with a lot of people at ARN, so they think of it through the lense of: Well, this is a bigger problem. It’s not just about the headline act of Kyle and Jack going down, this actually means job losses,” Kingsley said on the podcast.

Another quality Kingsley found impressive about Hawkins, Phillips and Stanaway was that they spoke about the sales relationship.

“The first week they got to Nova, they grabbed the sales team and said ‘Look, this is what you need to know about us: We’ll do stuff that’s authentic to us,” Kingsley says.

At the conference, Hawkins, Phillips and Stanaway made it clear they are very ‘hands on’ when it comes to their show.

“One of the things that just absolutely stood out to me in this session was – not only are the three of them super impressive … this is the show that a Content Director and a Sales Director together would want,” said Kingsley.

Of their ARN departure, Kingsley says “It’s just going to go down as one of the great ‘misses’ of all time, to let them go. The fact that they could not keep them in some role … somewhere on that network … and they let them walk out the door … I think, if you write the story of Radio Wars in ten years’ time, that’s the moment … the moment they let them go.”

“Because that’s the show they need right now.”

Also at the conference, Hawkins offered some sage advice for those interested in a broadcasting career.

“My rule in life is to be passionate, be the hardest worker in the room,” he said.

“And be polite. Don’t be a c**khead.”