When Nikki Osborne left Nova 106.9 at the end of last year, she said she’d be back after a trip to America.
Well, according to a media release, Nova Entertainment has announced “a major expansion of its content offering with the launch of Bush Deep, the network’s first-ever video-led series, created in collaboration with comedian Nikki Osborne and premiering on Tuesday, May 12”.
Basically, that means the series, featuring Osborne’s “Bushie”* character will appear in 30-minute episodes on Osborne’s own YouTube channel, with Nova presumably helping pay her expenses.
This is, apparently, Nova’s “first step into video-first original storytelling, extending the network’s audio offering into a highly scalable, multi-platform format”. Which will mean something to some of you, and not a lot to others.
The new weekly comedy series will also be heard on the usual podcast platforms via the Nova Podcast Network.
Which prompted one industry observer to tell me: “What bollocks to say Deep Bush [sic] will be a new video first approach for Nova. Next breath: but they’re also making it available as audio. It sounds like every other podcast starting up in 2026, i.e. you can watch or you can listen.”
According to Nova, “Bush Deep follows Bushie as she travels across Australia in search of a good yarn, sitting down with celebrities and everyday legends alike. With equal parts chaos and charm, Bushie asks the questions no one else would dare to…and always with tongue planted firmly in cheek.”
By “celebrities” they mean the likes of Larry Emdur, Manu Feildel, Steph Tolev, Colin Fassnidge, Osher Gunsberg, and Colin Mochrie.
We’re assured: “No one is safe from her unique, hilarious brand of interrogation.”
Osborne is quoted as saying: “It’s my absolute dream to pick up where Dame Edna and Croc Dundee left off and now that I’ve got a powerful machine like Nova behind me, well shoot, we might have a shot.”
So, no shortage of confidence there.
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P.S.
I had a chance to listen to Nova 106.9 (in an Uber) this week and it seems that the old/new team of Nick, Luttsy and Susie O’Neill is settling in. They had a shocker of a first survey — presumably a reaction to the loss of Osborne and the sacking of Ash Bradnam — but rebounded to a respectable figure in Survey 2. All eyes will be on the next couple of surveys — and not just those at Nova. If one station can recover relatively quickly from the loss of two-thirds of its Breakfast talent, is anyone’s job safe?
* Am I right in thinking that character used to be called “Bush Barbie”? Have the Mattel lawyers been on the phone?
Disclaimer: Brett Debritz has been writing about radio since before Nova existed.