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Yet another breakfast show has bitten the dust. What on earth is going on at Hit 105.9?
October 22, 2023
OPINION
By Peter Holmes
When you look at the merry-go-round of hosts since 2020, you’d be forgiven for thinking the crucial breakfast shift on HIT 105.9 Central West has become a bit of a circus.
On Friday the owners of the station, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), revealed that the latest breakfast pairing of Maz Compton and Matthew Baseley had been scrapped.
Their Hit 105.9 NSW Breakfast Show was networked around regional NSW and into Orange as a cost-cutting, one-size-fits-all exercise.
[I don't listen to breakfast radio crews because they all make my head hurt, but I assume it was subtitled something like “Mazzy & The Base”, “Matty & The Comp” or “The Mazster & Matt B”?]
“This show was so special to me I really would have done it forever,” an emotional Baseley told the audience on Friday.
“I don’t care if no-one was listening. This isn’t our decision obviously, that’s why Maz and I are quite sad about it. But we get it. Maz and I have been fired before and we’ll get fired again."
Baseley said that across his 20-year career he had worked on air, in programming and as a producer. “I know what a good show is, and this is a good show.”
He said you couldn’t manufacture chemistry and friendship between radio hosts.
In her farewell, a teary Compton began: “Well I’ve had a lot of co-hosts. This has been the best. I’ve gotten up every morning and absolutely loved coming to work. I really understand what the magic of radio is now.”
She said as hosts they had tried to be transparent and honest with their audience about their lives, as breakfast radio often relies on hosts talking about their families, but said it came at a price.
On Friday Baseley posted on his Instagram: “The powers that be have decided that our show won’t be coming back in 2024, in what has been a tough couple of weeks processing it all, we went out with a BANG this morning. Who knows what 2024 will bring, but I’m kinda excited to see.”
Radio news site RadioInfo said that Baseley would host the show solo until early December, and that the new lineup for 2024 would be unveiled in coming weeks.
In August 2020 SCA – which also owns Triple M – culled dozens of regional breakfast shows around Australia, networking one breakfast show into many regions within each state.
The state hosts in NSW were named as Daniel Gawned and Ash Pollard – and it's said their show was possibly subtitled “Gawnsey & The Pash”, “Polly & The Dan Man” or “Danny G & Ashpo”.
A month later Pollard went on maternity leave and was replaced by Maz Compton. It’s been suggested Gawned and Compton’s show was possibly subtitled “Gawndey & The Compo”, “Maz & The Dang” or “El Gawno & Miss Mazzy”.
Then, in May 2021 it was revealed that Compton would co-host NSW regional breakfast permanently with Gawned.
Six months later that pairing ended, and on November 20, 2021, SCA said that as of January 17, 2022, the new breakfast pairing would be Maz Compton and Danny Lakey.
Persistent rumours suggest it was also possibly subtitled “Mazco & The Lakester”, “The Key & The Com” or “Omp & Akey”.
In a statement at the time SCA said: “We’re so excited to welcome Danny back to the Hit Network, he’s funny, super creative and unpredictable.
"Danny has done some brilliant work on Triple M Nights, and we are thrilled to have him promoted to the Breakfast show for Hit NSW. To have him on the air every morning with Maz is going to be amazing.
“There is a very talented team behind this show who will create something fresh and electrifying for all of regional NSW to wake up to. Personally, I can’t wait for the fun and laughs to start in mid-January!”
The fun and laughs didn’t last long, however, and by July 2022 Lakey had left and was working for SEA FM on the Gold Coast.
Then, in mid-September, 2022, Matt Baseley was announced as Compton’s new co-host.
Their show lasted about 13 months.
SCA’s options for HIT 105.9 in Orange include a different set of hosts for regional NSW; a new national regional breakfast show; or hiring local crews to present a local breakfast show. The latter is highly unlikely.
The Orange News Examiner has sought comment from SCA.
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