Nova has finally flicked the switch on its biggest schedule shake-up in years, confirming that Fitzy, Wippa and Kate Ritchie will move out of Breakfast and into national Drive from Monday, February 9, while Ricki-Lee Coulter and Tim Blackwell take over the Sydney breakfast chair.
The new-look Drive team effectively confirmed the move themselves on air this morning, with Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli pitching it as a graduation moment after 15 years of early starts.
“The announcement that we are proud to make is that after 15 years of doing this breakfast radio show, the Fitzy and Wippa with Kate Ritchie Show, they have finally completed their apprenticeship and they’re going to be graduating to the national drive time position for all of Australia on the country’s best radio networks,” Wipfli told listeners.
Tim Blackwell, Ricki-Lee Coulter, Kate Ritchie, Ryan Fitzgerald, and Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli.
From school runs to the afternoon commute
Ryan ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald leaned into the shift in audience rhythm, framing it as a natural evolution for a show that has grown up with its listeners.
“This is the evolution of the show. We’ve been dropping you and the kids off at school every morning, but now we’re just going to be driving you home in the afternoon,” he said.
He went on to crack a gag about the transformation, adding: “One condition that we made, Wippa and I, was if we’re going to do this show, Kate Ritchie doesn’t get two names, and so Ritchie will be dropped from the show, and it will just be Kate.”
Ritchie, also on air this morning, fired straight back, “I think that’s because I’ve finally learnt how to spell my name, so I don’t need to see it on side buses.”
Tim Blackwell, Ricki-Lee Coulter.
What the network move really means
By shifting Fitzy, Wippa and Kate into 4pm to 6pm national Drive, Nova is effectively putting one of its most recognisable brands into a higher-value, advertiser-heavy daypart, while giving Ricki-Lee and Tim the chance to reboot Breakfast on Nova 96.9 Sydney from 6am to 9am.
The duo will also anchor a new one-hour national show at 6pm, creating a rare double shift that extends their reach across two key listening peaks.
The reshuffle also sees Joel Creasey step away from Sydney to take on a full-time on-air role in Perth, with Nova flagging a separate network project to be revealed on-air.
For Nova Entertainment, it’s one of the boldest programming calls it has made in years, effectively resetting its two most commercially important dayparts in one sweep after a strong 2025.
It also comes after continual denials from Nova Network Group Programming Director Brendan Taylor that any switch was in the works.