Ash London tipped to take on KIIS Melbourne turnaround
As ratings slide, ARN is banking on a fresh Breakfast line-up to rebuild the station’s audience and restore its Melbourne momentum.
Ash London appears bound for KIIS Melbourne Breakfast, but if the reports prove correct, she will inherit a station facing a bigger challenge than simply finding a new voice for mornings.
London is one of Australia's best-known music broadcasters, having fronted national radio shows, television programs and MTV franchises across Australia and New Zealand.
She's recently been hosting Drive on The Edge in New Zealand and is returning to Australia alongside her husband, Adrian Brine, with TV Blackbox reporting she will join TV fashion commentator Elliott Garnaut as the new hosts of KIIS Melbourne Breakfast.
Brine, currently Group Content Director across The Edge, Mai and George, is also returning to Australia and is reportedly taking up a Content Director role at the station.
ARN is yet to confirm either appointment.
“There’s been plenty of speculation about our KIIS Breakfast shows in Sydney and Melbourne, and we look forward to announcing the new line-ups soon,” an ARN spokesperson told Mediaweek.
If confirmed, London and Garnaut would take on one of Australian radio’s more intriguing rebuilding jobs: turning around a KIIS Melbourne station that initially held up after the end of The Kyle and Jackie O Show experiment, before beginning to lose ground.
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KIIS Melbourne's delayed ratings slide
The numbers show a station that weathered the immediate upheaval better than might have been expected.
KIIS 101.1 began 2026 with a 5.1% overall share and 880,000 cume in Survey 1. It edged up to 5.2% and 966,000 cume in Survey 2, before reaching a 2026 high in Survey 3 with a 5.3% share and 1.027 million listeners.
Then came the reversal.
Survey 4 saw KIIS fall to a 4.9% share and 997,000 cume. Survey 5 pushed it lower again, to a 4.8% share and 953,000 cume.
Across two surveys, KIIS shed 74,000 listeners from its Survey 3 peak, while overall station share declined consecutively.
Breakfast has been less linear. The shift opened the year at 5.1%, climbed to 5.4% in Survey 2, fell to 5.0% in Survey 3 and 4.8% in Survey 4, before recovering to 5.1% in Survey 5.
For now, Melbourne is taking the Sydney-based Mike E Breakfast show while ARN prepares separate new Breakfast line-ups for the two markets.
And that raises the bigger question: how much of KIIS Melbourne's problem can a new Breakfast show actually fix?
‘A format problem more than a breakfast problem’
One radio insider told Mediaweek the challenge facing KIIS extends beyond whoever sits behind the microphones in the morning.
“KIIS Melbourne has a format problem more than a breakfast problem - their music position makes them irrelevant.”
That assessment puts the stakes around London's potential appointment into sharper focus.
A new Breakfast show gives ARN an opportunity to establish a distinctly Melbourne proposition after its retreat from networking The Kyle and Jackie O Show into the market. But London and Garnaut, if confirmed, would still be operating within a station whose overall audience has now fallen across consecutive surveys.
The task isn't simply to launch a Breakfast show. It's to give Melbourne listeners a reason to come back to KIIS, and stay there once Breakfast finishes.
However, a senior executive at a competitive radio network told Mediaweek that London has the credentials to make the new show work, provided it gets the broader equation right.
“Ash London is one of the most underrated radio performers we have in the industry. She’s hard-working, tenacious, and hungry for success. ARN have picked the right person for Melbourne breakfast.
“It will now come down to who she is paired with and how much marketing support she gets, but she has every chance to succeed if they can get the chemistry right with her co-hosts.”
London heads home for ‘incredible job opportunity’
London's return to Australia comes after almost two years with MediaWorks, including around a year hosting nights on More FM before moving to Drive on The Edge nine months ago.
In an email to staff, MediaWorks NZ Head of Content Leon Wratt confirmed London had been offered what he described as an “incredible job opportunity”, with her final day on The Edge set for Friday, 2 October.
Brine will continue supporting the Mai, Edge and George shows remotely in a reduced capacity after returning to Australia.
London and Brine told MediaWorks staff:
“We feel privileged to have spent nearly two years in this incredible country with such amazing and talented people at MediaWorks. Our love and respect for kiwi radio has only strengthened and we can’t wait to take what we’ve learned back to Aus.
“Thanks to Leon and Bosto who believed in us and have been incredibly supportive, and to everyone who welcomed us with such kindness and generosity. You’ve made this an experience we will never forget.”
“Up the Wahs!”
Wratt added: “Ash and AB have been truly brilliant in everything they have done at MediaWorks. I wish them both all the best for their next radio journey.”
A return to Australian Breakfast
For London, the reported KIIS appointment would also mark a return to Australian Breakfast radio.
She briefly co-hosted 2DayFM Breakfast in 2019 before moving to the Hit Network's national nights slot.
This time, however, the job comes with considerably higher stakes.
ARN needs to rebuild KIIS Melbourne after one of the most consequential programming experiments in recent Australian radio. London potentially gives the network an experienced, recognisable broadcaster with both Australian and New Zealand market experience, while Garnaut would bring a less conventional radio choice to the pairing.
But the latest ratings underline the size of the assignment.
A fresh Breakfast show can give KIIS Melbourne a new identity in the mornings. Whether London can help lift the entire station is the question ARN now needs to answer.
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