Hamish and Andy successors named

Box and Lund now face the daunting task of keeping the two million listeners that made Hamish & Andy Australia's most successful radio show. The program, currently airing five days a week, is believed to generate up to $40 million of Austereo's $265 million revenue.

From next year, Box and Lund will host the Monday to Thursday drive shift on the Today network — including Fox FM in Melbourne — with Hamish & Andy airing on Fridays only.

Box — who will be the only female FM drive host among 13 men — was a co-presenter of Triple M's top-rating drive show The Shebang in 2004 and 2005. She currently hosts a Saturday morning show on the Today network.

Austereo's head of content, Craig Bruce, told The Age that Box has always been at the top of his list.

"It really was a case of 'Fifi and who can we match Fifi with?"' he said. "She and Jules have a great chemistry off air and are good mates, and I think we can build a show on that foundation."

When asked the ratings target for the Fifi & Jules show, Bruce said: "Number one ... obviously, there will be some audience churn [but] I'm confident they'll be able to maintain a good portion of the current audience."

Ironically, it was Lund who helped Blake and Lee break into commercial radio several years ago.

"Jules won a contest in where we took a normal listener and made them famous for 15 days," Bruce said. "He'd tell us about how he and his mates would travel overseas, getting themselves on talk shows and into trouble wherever they could. And we said, 'Can we meet them?' and three weeks later, he walks in with three lanky young boys: Hamish and Andy and Ryan Shelton."

Box will continue her entertainment segment on Channel Seven's Sunrise and Lund will remain a reporter for Channel Nine's Get-away. Their new radio show will begin on January 31 and will be anchored by Byron Cooke, who also anchored The Shebang.

Blake and Lee, who are rumoured to be in discussions with Channel Ten, are yet to reveal their television plans. In August, they announced their shift to a weekly "fun-sized" show from 2011 so they could focus on TV.

Their most recent special for Ten, Hamish & Andy's Reministmas Special, drew almost 1.2 million viewers last night.