More than two years after he quit radio in the wake of the Scotty and Nige debacle, Nigel Johnson is returning to the breakfast shift - this time on Mix 106.3 alongside Kristen Henry.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"I'm pumped,'' he said.
"I'm only 44 years and I've spent 20 years of my life at the radio station in Canberra. So I've spent half of my life there, these people are my second family and it feels like coming home.''
Neil "Wilko" Wilcock, who has presented Mix's important breakfast shift alongside Henry for a little over a year, moves to the Drive program for Mix with Courtney Kneen.
Both new shows start on Monday.
Johnson will be returning to radio after stints in media roles with the ACT Emergency Services and Digital Health Agency. He'd been back recently at Canberra FM Radio writing ads but really wanted to be back on-air.
"I hoped and prayed at some point an opportunity would present itself and it has," he said.
"I missed the people and the industry. I missed the creativity, the spontaneity, the fun, the laughs, the ideas.
"The chance to give things away, play music, talk and have fun. Who gets to do that for a living? It's too much fun.''
Henry, who recently won an Australian Commercial Radio Award for her documentary about breast cancer campaigner Connie Johnson, will in 2019 be entering her sixth year in breakfast for Mix.
She said Johnson had been "a dear, dear friend of mine for the best part of a decade'' and she was excited a "Canberra radio legend'" was returning to breakfast.
"Nigel is the most genuine and caring person both on and off the microphone," she said. "We're from Canberra and for Canberra.''
Wilcock, meanwhile, will also be presenting Drive when Kneen is due to go on maternity leave sometime before the end of the year.
Henry said she was proud of what had been achieved with The Kristen and Wilko Show.
"It was the most popular and successful show for Mix and, really, the ratings speak for themselves,'' she said, adding that she was looking forward to working with Johnson.
"For me, nothing beats a 10-year relationship with one of my dear friends. Kirsten and Wilko, we're really proud of. But I think we can go bigger and better.''
While it may be ancient history now in the fast-paced, chop-and-change world of commercial radio, the breakup of the successful breakfast partnership of Johnson and Scott "Scotty'' Masters in 2015 was like a bomb had gone off in local radioland.
Scott Masters left Mix's sister station 104.7 in October, 2015, later claiming he was sacked while on holiday.
It brought to an end a successful eight-year on-air partnership with Johnson who went to Drive on Mix 106.3 and then quit radio altogether in mid-2016, for a media job with the ACT Emergency Services Agency.
Asked on Thursday what he liked about Henry, Johnson replied: "I think Kristen has very nice hair''.
But more seriously: "Kristen is not only an extremely lovely person, she's someone I call, which you don't always see that often, a proper professional.
"She loves her job and she is good at her job and that's a devastating combination."
Henry is also delaying her upcoming wedding to fiance Iain Davidson until May next year to accommodate her workload, including the launch of the new breakfast show.
Upending tradition, she is having the reception first, in Canberra, and then the wedding in New Zealand.
