Tim Blackwell marks 25 years at Nova: ‘Over half my life’

Nova 96.9 Sydney Breakfast host Tim Blackwell has marked 25 years with Nova, a career spanning four states, two station launches, national Drive and, finally, the Sydney Breakfast shift he had wanted for years.

For Blackwell, the milestone is measured as much in life as it is in radio.

“I've been with Nova over half my life. I’ve worked in four different states, got to launch two radio stations, had three beautiful children, had a Chili Pepper ask my mum if I was breastfed and made life-long friends and mentors,” Blackwell told Mediaweek.

“I feel incredibly lucky to celebrate this milestone with a company that has been there with me through it all.”

READ MORE: Celebrating 20 years of Nova FM: Tim Blackwell remembers his radio start

READ MORE: Sarah Harris to join Ricki-Lee and Tim for Nova Breakfast

From demo tapes to Nova

Blackwell’s path into Nova started before the network had finished building itself.

While studying at AFTRS in 2000, he was sending demo tapes to anyone he thought might give him a start in radio. On the drive to class, he was also listening to Merrick and Rosso on the newly launched Nova 96.9 and watching a new commercial radio brand begin to make noise in Sydney.

Among those demos were tapes sent to Nova’s new content executives. A handwritten response from Dan Bradley offered Blackwell a job with DMG Radio on a station that had not yet been announced as another Nova outlet.

The starting salary was $36,000. Blackwell recalled in a 2021 Mediaweek interview that it was more than he had ever previously earned in a year.

Before the move to Melbourne, however, came an apprenticeship in Albury. DMG sent Blackwell to its Star FM regional hub, where he hosted Drive across about nine markets and juggled a heavy schedule of talk breaks, many of which had to be localised for individual regions.

It was an intense introduction to commercial radio, but one that prepared him for what came next.

Launching Nova stations

Blackwell joined the launch team for Nova 100 in Melbourne in 2001, initially hosting the midnight to 6am shift.

He would stick around after finishing his shift to watch Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek prepare and present Breakfast, before later moving into a late-night slot himself.

Then came Perth.

Blackwell was the launch announcer when Nova 937 went to air in December 2002, with a studio considerably more crowded than most first shifts.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were there, along with television news crews, Nova content executive Dean Buchanan and DMG proprietor Lord Rothermere, at the only Australian Nova launch he attended.

It is a moment that has clearly survived the intervening years. Twenty-five years into his Nova career, Blackwell’s anniversary recollection still includes the rather specific memory of a Chili Pepper asking his mother whether he had been breastfed.

Four states and a national Drive run

From Perth, Blackwell’s Nova career took him through Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with Adelaide the only Nova market where he has not lived.

After working in Melbourne Breakfast with Hughes and Langbroek, he moved to Brisbane to co-host Breakfast with Meshel Laurie. By 2011, Blackwell, Laurie and Marty Sheargold had been moved into Nova’s national Drive slot.

Kate Ritchie joined Blackwell and Sheargold in 2014, creating Kate, Tim & Marty, which became one of Nova’s defining national Drive line-ups. After Sheargold’s departure in 2020, Joel Creasey joined the show, with Ricki-Lee Coulter later becoming part of the team.

Looking back at 20 years with Nova in 2021, Blackwell said he had never felt a reason to leave because each move within the network had given him another opportunity to advance his career.

Five years later, that pattern has continued.

“I’m old enough to remember sending in my demo tape on a TDK Cassette but still young enough to know who Sonny Fodera is,” Blackwell told Mediaweek.

The Breakfast job he always wanted

In February 2026, Nova moved Blackwell and Ricki-Lee Coulter from national Drive into Sydney Breakfast, launching Ricki-Lee & Tim on Nova 96.9 on 9 February.

The move brought Blackwell back to Breakfast after years in national Drive, but this time in the city where Nova had first captured his attention while he was trying to break into the industry.

At the time, Blackwell described hosting Sydney Breakfast as a career-long ambition. More than 25 years after sending out those cassette demos, he is now doing it for the company where almost his entire commercial radio career has played out.

“I’m not sure they’ll still have me in another 25 years,” said Blackwell, “but I’ve got weekends on Smooth on my vision board.”