End of an era as The Bunch ‘is outta here’

After 21 years of 4am alarm calls, Perth‟s most successful Breakfast radio hosts will get to sleep in!

mix94.5’s Fred Botica (centre left) and Lisa Shaw (near left) from The Bunch will hold their last Breakfast show together on Friday 25 October and get ready to launch their new Drive show in 2014.

Botica will take the summer off to work on his golf swing, coming back on air in March 2014. While he is away, Shaw will pair up with mix94.5 announcer, Tim Lordan to do the Drive shift.

mix94.5‟s very successful Drive show, Clairsy, Shane and Kymba, will move into Breakfast from October 28 in a neat swap. Captain Paul (above far left) with his comprehensive traffic reports (and incredibly lame jokes) will remain in Breakfast with the new team to keep Perth listeners driving into work fully informed.

“I had wanted to take long service leave for some time and when we decided the timing was right to move to Drive, I thought this was the perfect opportunity,” said Botica, who has been in radio for 44 years, more than 27 years in Perth and 21 years in Breakfast with mix94.5.

Shaw said that while she too had been tempted to kick back over the summer, she wondered if playing golf was the obligatory way to spend your long service leave.

“And since I can‟t think of anything more boring, I guess I will never get to take holidays,” she said.

“I‟m excited about the move to host the Drive show with Fred. And now I get to sleep in for the first time since I was 20 years old because before I was part of The Bunch, I read Breakfast news. You have no idea how appealing the thought of sleeping in is!”

Even though The Bunch will celebrate its last day in Breakfast on Friday 25 October, Fred and Lisa will be at Austin Lakes on Sunday 27 October giving away a house as part of the “Win This Amazing Place” promotion.

“This is a fitting finale for a show which over the years has given away several Dream Homes, well over a million dollars in prize money as well as having been the number one FM breakfast show 111 times in the past 15 years,” said Linda Wayman, General Manager of Southern Cross Austereo Perth.

“Botica‟s Bunch, later known simply as The Bunch, has dominated Perth Breakfast radio for more than 15 years. Their last day as a Breakfast show will mark the end of an era and will be a huge milestone in the history of mix94.5,” she said.

“We know we have massive shoes to fill with Fred and Lisa. Fred is an icon of Perth radio and a consummate professional. We respect and admire him enormously,” said Clairsy (Dean Clairs) who has worked for Southern Cross Austereo in Perth for 22 years and is a good mate of Fred and Lisa‟s.

Botica said he is looking forward to the greater flexibility of a Drive show which will allow him to have more of a focus on music, which has always been his great love, as well as the opportunity to tap into his vast network of music industry people.

“I have loved being on Breakfast for so many years in Perth. Radio has been my life for almost 44 years, and I want to continue on air after taking my long service leave, which will allow me to do many things I haven‟t had time to do in the past,” he said.

One thing that can be guaranteed: there won‟t be a dry eye at mix94.5 – or even around Perth – when at 9am on October 25, Fred says his signature sign-off for the final time, „… and the Bunch is outta here‟.