Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Mike Hosking Off‑Air

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

In this episode, Mike Hosking swings by for a surprisingly honest chat that goes way beyond radio. From his brutal 2:30am starts to the super quiet life he lives off-air, Mike opens up about the routines and mindset that have kept him at the top for so long. He talks about why overthinking is a waste of time, why being “liked” doesn’t really matter, and why just showing up every day is half the job done. Mike turns the spotlight back on the hosts and proves exactly why he’s still one of the biggest names in broadcasting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What? He's coming in. I think Mike Hosking might be coming in. No way. Have we got him? We need some entry music. Have we got him? What?

Oh good. So, Prime Minister's got less on derage than this. This is... Hello, good morning. Oh my goodness, this is actually happening. How are you? Lovely to see you. We have pested you so much that you've come down.

Have you ever been on this floor before? Well, no, I went to the toilet. I just went to the toilet. I don't wear headphones. You don't have to wear headphones? Do you not wear headphones? No. Don't you?

Is that tip number one? Why don't you do that? Oh, the hair. It does look good. It does look good. I know. Show us your hair. I'd wear the headphones.

Now, Mike, can we say, firstly, thank you for taking the time to come down. Can I just say the only reason I'm here in all honesty is that Jason, you know, Jason, you know, Jason. Yeah, boss. What a whining bitch. Only you can call him that. I'm not saying, yeah. I was more than happy simply to leave the building and never deal with you clowns. Yeah, no, but Jason's just whining away and he said, you know,

so here I am. You're doing like one or two things, almost like charity work again. He said that. He said, think of it as charity work. That's what he said. Those were, his words, not mine. The only time I've ever seen you on this floor, we've worked here for six years was once you walked. Had you been here six years? Yeah.

Have you noticed us? We'd never see each other, honestly, but you walked out of the lift one day, and I was like, we could see out to the foyer, and you walked to the mail room. Now, I think this was when Kate, your wife was working. The mail room. Oh, that would be to collect her... Packages, and you took a trolley, and it was like, what's he doing? What's he doing?

Walk back to the lift. I was like, I wonder if we'll bring back the trolley. Ten minutes later, the doors opened, the trolley came out, not you. I had my people. I had my people to take it upstairs. She's an influencer, and so she used to get a lot of, you know... Free stuff. You're not a social media guy, Mike.

I'm not on social media. Have you ever looked at social media? No, I'm led to believe. I can probably, you're on social media. Yeah. I assume you're on. Does Jason tell you that being on social media is going to help you out with your audience and all that? So I bet he does, doesn't it?

He's quite. I bet you guys I get on social media is going to really help you. See, my advice is get off social media. Well, look at me. Do you work? It's worked for me. But technically you are on social media. I see a lot of clips of you from your show.

So we see you on social media. They're my people. Yeah. See, we don't have a huge group of people. No. You must be where Kate films you while you're watching the war. That was an early thing. That was, I wasn't, to be fair.

Weren't you? Early on, but then it became a thing. And now I'm, so I try and, you know, avoid it. Yeah. Because most of the time I'm under the influence. Yeah, right. Especially on the late kickoffs. Like in the four in the afternoon kickoff.

That's a late kickoff, is it? It's a late kickoff. It's a late kickoff for me. Because at what time do you actually get up? Because you work some long out. I get up at 2.30? Right. Yeah, I get up at 2.

What time do you get up? About 4? Yeah. I ran into, can I mention Tony Street? Is that allowed? Yeah. She's on the station? No, she's on the station.

Yeah. Oh, is that another station? So I was down there. I was, funnily enough, I was down in the basement in the car park. Do you guys get car parks in the building? I do. I do. I used to park beside you back in the day.

Was that you? Actually, do you know Did you know she actually It was a scrape It was a scrape Yeah, it was a Japanese import Yeah Did you ever scratch on your car?

Yeah It was you, wasn't it? It was a long time ago I went and looked I checked the footage And I didn't recognize you So I didn't know who it was I didn't know who it was

Which car was it? Who else? Do you know anyone else in the building Apart from Jason? No, I don't know anyone No, I know the male person I know the male person in Jason, but apart from that, where was I

with that story? Because I was going down to the car park. Oh, you're going down to the car park? I've forgotten the story now. We started talking about your sleeping and then we got to hear. That's right, yes. So sorry, I was down in the basement, having got a freebie and then I came back because I was writing, it was at 20 to 6. Yeah. In the morning. I saw Tony Street arriving for work at 20 to 6. You're just tattling on it. 20 to 6, Tony Street's arriving for the breakfast show.

She's the other diva, you and Tony. Is that what it is? She is, I can tell you a few stories about her. So what time do you arrive, Benno? We arrived. We're about somewhere at around 5 o'clockish, but yeah, yeah. But we do a lot of our prep the day before. That's what Tony was saying in the left. But we're still 5 o'clock and we're in here.

She said at 20 to 6, I said, what's this? And she goes, I do a lot of my prep the day before. That's what we keep telling us. We don't rely as heavily on current events as you do. Well, so this chat is here to go by clearly. So you must be in bed like 8 o'clock, surely. I would go to bed on Saturday. This is the sad part about my life.

I swear to God, on Saturday night this past Saturday, just gone. I fell asleep on the sofa at 628 of an evening. Oh, and that was the end of the night. Oh, the youngings. And that was the end of the night. No, no. I snorted a couple of things and I went, and then went clubbing. Yes, it was the end of the night.

Oh my God, Mike. Well, you're poor. Like, Kate, we know Kate Wells. Do you know what was funny about that? Did she want to go out for dinner or do something nice? She was in the window seat and she'd fallen asleep as well. Oh, really? Yeah.

It was an old pub. It was pathetic. It was like living at Arvita. So, forgive me, but what do you do for like a social gathering? Like, how do you hang out with friends? Are you being facetious? Why are you going to be at 6.30? Well, that was a bit early.

It was only 7, 7.15. Oh, sorry. No, there's no, no. How many friends do I have, Jono? I reckon, go on. I reckon the only person you actually genuinely like in the world is probably Kate. That's true. It's a hundred percent true. It's a hundred percent true.

Can we say something that we probably never said on radio? We went to your house for dinner once. Lunch. Well, it was lunch. Yeah, no, it was a dinner. It was lunch. It was wrapped by six. Yeah, it was done.

It was right. Your dinner time. Were the words you guys have got to go now? Yeah, yeah. Do you remember that? Yeah, you did. Exactly. Was that one of the favors that our boss?

It was a favourite. It was a different boss. It was a different boss. He actually, funnily enough, was a personal friend. And he's left the company now and he's in Australia. But he asked when these two reprobates, we were trying to lure them from across the road. How painful was that for you to have us at your house? Really, really, really painful.

Would you turn up in that hole and thing? The Kingswood? That's right. And it leaked up. If you still got that? Yes, it leaked on the driveway. It leaked oil on Oscar. So he turns up.

So we had quite a nice house. Not as nice as the house we have now. Okay. But it was quite a nice. It was a beautiful place. It was a beautiful place. And they turn up in the hold in and they drink too much. And, you know, it's just so embarrassing.

I remember our kids were like toddlers then and they were running around your residents. Oh God, you took the kids. Yeah. It took them all. The deal was and my mate Dean said to me said if you can get them across the line, we can take 50 grand off their contract. So it was for the company, it was worth it. Six years on, Ben.

Yeah. Oh, it worked. You must have had a renewal in that time, I guess. Yeah, we did. We kept putting a clause to come back to your house for dinner, but it hasn't happened so far. And for the record, it won't. No, we could come after 7.30 and hang out with Kate and you can be in bed. No.

No, that won't be happening either. So what does your day look like now? Okay. What does Mike Hoski do for president? It doesn't only look like this. I can tell you that resurrecting music stations on the ground floor. the ratings were quite good, I understand. They told me on the stairs down that you did quite well.

Yeah, we're not in your category. Of course not. There's a big gap between us. But you did quite well. Is that because you've arrived? Are you new? Yes. I have joined their relationship.

I'll see to spice things up. So you're relatively new to the... So let's join the dots. She joins. So you're here we're here for four or five years. I'm just trying to work this out. I know what you're trying to work at. Going nowhere.

So you're here for four or five years going nowhere. And suddenly old Meg's turns up, turbocharges the program. Thank you, Mike. Rating's up through the roof. Where's our boss? Is he hearing this? Mike, just give you around. Wrap him up, wrap him up.

Yeah. So what about advice for us, though? Because you have been broadcasting for many decades, right? Like, what's the one thing that's... What a condescending thing. Many decades. You have. You have started as a copywriter.

I learned. I was doing some research on you. I didn't realize you did it. He was a copywriter. Yeah. And I, yeah, look how I did it. You were too. Actually, no, no, you were.

He's responsible for show a shirk. Showish crack. The Nova single. I thought that was you. You claimed it was you. I did it for many years, but then I'd started working with Ben. No, no, no, no. I had nothing as famous as you.

I got fired for being a copyrighted, but I was a copywriter for six months. The trick was to start on a radio station that was going nowhere. Okay. And a lot of people got sacked at this radio station, so they stuck me on air. and then I did two middawns, two, and then somebody else got sacked, and then they stuck me on the nights, eight till midnight.

And then after about six months, you know, off I went. So the advice was what? Now, the problem with you, Ben, is it's natural. You either got it or you. Nothing you can do. It comes out. It's fairly early on in the career.

They say something like, that guy's got it. It's like old Meg's here. She's got it. I reckon Meggs has got it. She's, She's an audience mover. And so what you'll have in this industry is you'll have a lot of people,

some of whom develop reputations and names, and they'll get given new jobs, and they'll go, oh, so-and-so, he'll make a difference on that show. Or, you know, so-and-so is well-known. But there's a very, very small handful of people that can actually move an audience. And we're looking at the five years. You didn't do it.

And meets comes along, and suddenly we're off to the race. We're off to the races. I need this audio for my parents. Yeah. Do you know the real trick? What's that? Not to give a rats. Really?

Really? Yeah, you don't want to take it too seriously. Oh my God, Ben, you need listen to that because you're going to bed at night. You seem a bit intense to me. Anxious. He's intense. He's an intense, guys. Very anxious.

Is he a handbrake on the creativity? No. No. He's a hard worker, Mike. He's like you. He's anxious. It's not about hard work, John, I. It's about performance and results.

He's worried about offending people. Yeah. Oh, give that up. Give that up. Give that up. Give that up. Yeah. USA's gone now anyway. What are you?

Say whatever you are you. So who's going to get you? No one. That's true. Well you've had no your parents, my mother-in-law, nothing but creed from talking to you and you talking about us. Oh that's good. Well I'm very pleased in my own small, weird, wonderful way that I don't know. I know they're like, yeah, it was talking. It's like we're on radio every day but that didn't mean anything. This segment seems an awfully lengthy segment.

Would this be typical of what goes to your... No, no. Not at all. No. No. We're going to the music. at some three in a row with the cash call to follow. It's like you give me away prizes? Yeah, we do. We've got 50K

to give away at the moment. What do I have to do to win that? Not that it means much to me 50K, but it's just chump change. It's a quiet weekend. I'd give it to a charity personally. Do you want to give me the money now? I do the guide dogs. I can give them 50 grand. Do you do charity for the guideguards? You give me 50 grand now

I'll give them another 50 of my own. Would you? Yeah, of course. Well, I didn't know if you know this. No, but what do you do? So sorry. When we make it to the music, is there any music? Yeah, well, to pull the curtain bat, we have recorded a little bit now because we didn't know how long we'd have with you. Are you going to edit this? Well, just break it up, break it up.

I refuse to, you can break it up into what? What are you, Winston-Ped? Let's break it up until what. This goes out live as is unrecorded because unless... We wanted to do that, but our boss is like we can't just run talk for non-stop. Is that Jason again? Well, you're probably Jason, yeah. Can I confidently say that this particular break, which has gone on for how long, John?

Eight minutes, 43 seconds. I reckon it'll be the best eight minutes and 43 seconds. Run it across the quarter hour. You'll get the audience across with you. Go another three in a row after that. Do you play three in a row, four in a row? No. After nine we do.

After nine we do a two in a row. Two in a row after nine. Yeah. Okay. Is that what normally happens to an order? Is that what normally happens in an interview? He leaves. Yeah.

All this best research. I only had three questions. Give me another one. Oh my God. He's asking what you leave, mate. Here's another tip. I stay in the studio with all my guests. Ben just dipped out.

I've never. Sorry, I'm still talking. Jeez. Where does he stop? I've never been to interview halfway through and left the guest sitting there going

to have a little next. God's sake. I've enjoyed you, Megina. Thank you, fine. You too. Is that a good trick to stick around while the guests is.

Okay. Oh my God. Medium link breaks. Don't go more than two in a row. Don't leave the studio half through the bloody. I had some audio I was going to play you, but I don't think it's in there. It's all right. Mike, like, we have a caller.

We have a caller who would like to talk to you. Okay. Do you want any headphones? Oh, you can just put them on and just halfway. Kim, we've got Mike Hosking on. Kim Hill. Is this Kim Hill? No, no, wrong surname.

Wrong surname. Kim from Christchurch. What did you want to say to Mike? You definitely need to go and show these guys how to do the show. Oh, Kim. No, no, Kim. Wait, do you listen to our show, Kim, or mics? No, I listen to you guys, you're wonderful.

That's why she knows we need work. Name me, Kim, can you hear me? I can. Hello, Kim. Hi. What part of Christchurch you win? I'm out in Cust. In where?

Cust. Cust. Just out of Ranguera. That's rural, that's rural, Christchurch. That is rural, yeah. The three best bits about the show are what? Go. For $50,000, Kim, of Cust.

For $50,000, Kim of Cust, what are the three best things about the show? John O'Beene and Megan. Oh, that's good. Very, very good. That's the other thing I've learned about the show. It's entirely possible. I think the audience are brighter than you lot. Yeah, you're probably right.

That was the sharpest answer I've had since I've been in here. Kim, lovely to talk with you. Call again three in a row. Thank you. No worries. That was good, Mike. You could really get back into music radio. That's fantastic.

Surely this has gone on long enough. Yeah, Mark, Mike's wrapping it up. Back to my rider, which was this goes out live. cut, unfettered, otherwise there's going to be lawyers involved. All right. Okay, all right. And I'll tell you what I'll do for you, just because I've taken a personal interest in this. Yeah.

Do you think you'll last five years, five more years? Well, I want to be for five years. Touch and go. My contract's not, but. I'll come back in five years time. Oh, like five years. See if we've improved. I'll go back in five years time and see if there's any improvement.

It's all right, John, you're to collapse. I'm going to collapse. The five year update for Mike, okay? Yeah, exactly. Once every five years. Okay, we'll check and see how you go. Could you say we're like the dragons on the NRL table? Would you say now we've moved up slightly?

Would you give us... No. No, no, you're still fumbling the ball. You're still fumbling the ball. The intent is there. Okay, good. The intent is there, but the ball handling is not all it could be. We want to win.

You want to win. Yeah, the dragons want to want to. That line you said about how he works really hard, Mike. None of that counts. It's either deliver or go home, John. And stay here for it. Yeah. Well, I wanted to play some audio and we can have into it.

daughters. I don't think it's, I don't think it's in there, though, is it? Do I have to put the hands back on? No, it's all right. It's all right. As my daughters have to listen to your show every day with their grandma on the way to school, and they had some feedback on your show. Do you, they don't have to? What I find with the younger demographic is they actually quite like. Well, yeah, they said you were good. You could smile a little bit more, was one of your

thing. Yes. And, yeah, I don't think the audio is. And a lot of shouting all over each other. Oh, no, that's true. That's a regular complaint on my program. But it's not mainly not you. It's just like, Mike, Mike, answer the question. It's guests. It's guests and stuff like that. But are you disappointing your children don't listen to you? Well, yeah.

It's grandmas, that's my mother-in-law. But yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, and your kids don't listen to your show either, do they, Joe? No, no, no. And you don't have kids. No, I've got two. My kids hate radio, so that's great. My kids hate radio, too.

Isn't that interesting? What do you think that's about? I just listen to radio, but yeah. There's commercials. No one runs a heavier ad load than me. And do you know why? Because it supports you loses. It really does.

Thank you. How many minutes an hour do you run? What? I don't know. You've got to know what your show is. How do you get in and out? How do you do the time spent listing? How do you do all of that?

Seven or eight minutes a bit. Seven or eight minutes. What have you got? Half an hour. 18. 18. Yeah, but that's... You are dragging us losers through, right?

Yeah. Thank you so much for coming down. It's my... It's almost my... pleasure. Yeah. Look how proud he is of his admin it. He's so proud. 18. To have Prime Minister today and mentioned. He was ropeable with you guys. And what I was disappointed, he was ropedable with you guys for holding him up. And what I, why, because he, because he needs my help. It's election year, don't you know, right?

So we were helping too. Were you by doing what? Bringing him to our youthful audience. He said five minutes with the audience. It was 38 seconds. But anyway, that's fine. Do you know what I was worried about that you, people, especially you, John are, you're good looking, you're good looking, Megan. obviously. Someone like Jono, someone like Jono can approach the Prime Minister and none of his security of which there is a lot

took you out and took you down and you can get them into the studio. But anyway, nice to see you. I love you too. Thank you, I see you too. What do we do now? Play a couple of records? Yeah, we can do that. Another two or three in a row. What's your favourite song? What's your favourite song? My favourite song? Yeah, do you have a

favorite song? Not on the story. Favorite band? Do you play a bit of Robbie? Yeah, we play Robbie Williams. Yeah, we don't say it like you. What's the sort of Robbie? What's that? No, I was just, I'm surprised. I love a bit of Robbie audience.

Who doesn't it? A bit of live at Nedworth. Have you interviewed Robbie? Who? Ella Langley? Who? Country music? No, I don't know Ella Langley.

Anything country? Yeah. You seem to get all the big stars when they come in. Are you going to chat to Robbie? Have you chat to Robbie? I've chatted Robbie four or five times. Oh, okay. I had chatted Robbie the other day about two weeks ago.

Does anyone make you nervous? because you do have people like Robbie Williams, politicians, leaders. Who did I do the other day? If somebody could tell me who I did the other day, I was nervous about. And I can't remember who it was, but I thought, I hope this goes well. And did it? It could have been the guy Kelly. Who was the guy Kelly with it?

Was it Michael Kelly? Michael Kelly is from, do you remember Doug Stamper on, what was the program called? You know, with what's his name? House of Carle. Oh, House of Carle. Oh, yes. So he's a good example. So he's not particularly.

particularly famous. Yeah. But he was Doug Stamper on House of Car. Yeah. And so you think, he was like the fixer character. 100%. And so anyway,

he's in the new Jack Ryan. Yeah. So I thought to myself, I'd never done him before. So I thought to myself, I hope this goes well. So it wasn't nervous, but I hope this goes well.

Funny enough, Robbie Williams, I was nervous the first time, because I hadn't done it, but he was in a hotel in Geneva. Right. And we ended up talking about sandwiches and the price of sandwiches.

But at all times, I stayed in the studio. So at no point. He was down a Zoom And at no point did Robbie in Geneva Go where's he gone? What happened to him? Where's he gone? You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I see it. The only video that's going to come out of

this whole thing is Ben leaving you bit in today. If you can say good morning, ask the questions Then say nice to talk to you and remain in the studio The whole time. I'll just write that down. You'll be surprised at how well the interviews go. Speaking of interviews, I do have one flex on you. Do you know what a flex is? You're lucky I like you.

Yes, I know what a flex is. So we chatted to Liam Lawson recently. We managed to get him in studio. I love Liam. Yeah, so do I. Massive Formula One thing. I am. I've got a podcast actually, Mike.

What's a podcast? But they shifted things around and we got Liam in studio and apparently he cancelled on you. Yes, he did. And was that your fault? Yes, but you had a bigger flex on the other side of that. What was that? Didn't you call him? Don't you have his phone number?

Yes, I did. Can I have it? No, no, you can't. So what do you do? The only reason you're on the ground floor is that when people come into the building, you basically nab them. Is that how works, Prime Minister, Liam Lawson, go and grab them. We did it with the Auckland FC trophy this morning.

Isn't Liam lovely? He's so nice. He's such a down-to-earth. He's the real deal. He's a genuine deal. He hasn't changed. I've known him right from we used to do him when he was an F2. And he was like, you never heard of him.

and he hasn't changed from them. That's the other thing, Ben, remain genuine. Remain genuine. Don't go all high for Luton and you know how it goes? Just be real. Just be real. Just be real.

Little pockets of wisdom just keep coming. Always focus towards me, but I did leave the studio, so that's on me. It's on me. I'm just picking the ones that need the most help. Yeah, that's on me. Okay, Warriors' year's finally. Last question, is it our year?

There's no question. It's our year. I mean, what I've always said about the Warriors is, So top four this year, debt done, that's easy. It should be the final. In the final,

anything can happen, right? Anything can happen in the final. But there's not a thing at the moment that you can point to that doesn't suggest that we're good enough to go all the way. Don't you think? Even with the injuries,

I feel like in other years. What injuries? Well, you know, like Tanner Boyd and things like that, you know? Oh, Lukey. Would you play Lukey? Yep, absolutely. Of course you play Luca.

Yeah. That's why I said this morning, we've got Jason, you heard of Jason Pine? Yeah. You heard of Jason Pine? You heard of those two. Anyway, those two clowns, they're up there this morning,

and you can't really play him because he's leaving. I said, you play the best person for the job, simple as that. He was the best person before him, wasn't he? The best half of the comp last. I got a text on the show this morning. He goes, I got a text on the show this morning. It said that Luke Metcalfe, he's not as good as you think he is. And yet last year, we couldn't do without him.

So we couldn't do without him now he's not as good as we did it. Anyway, this is our year. And you two, to be fair, I don't know about you, Meg's. But I, you two aren't fear with a friend. No, I've been there since, yeah, you're in 95, yeah, yeah. Hardcore. I mean, I went to the first game of 95.

I've been in and out. Yeah, you've been in and out. So, Ben, it's the real deal. So where are you? Are you a fear with a friend? I'm fair weather, yeah. I'll jump on for the grand final. No, no, don't do that.

Because we don't like, we don't like people like that. That's the point. 30 years, Ben, I know. 30 years. I know. I know. Yeah, I know. I've been to nine years old.

Take it up. I've been to the one final and we lost. Yeah, exactly. That was embarrassing. So maybe don't go to the final rule. Yeah, well, I don't know, but I wanted. Would you travel? But you took the long weekend the other weekend to go to the Magic Ground, didn't? That's why I missed you.

Other tip. You two keep turning up. Monday to Friday. The show is Monday to Friday, guys. Not Monday Tuesday, not Friday off, not I've had a hard week and need a three-day weekend in Queens. No, four-day. Four-day. Four-day.

Was it a four-day weekend, was it been? But it was annual leave, Mike. Was it a freebie? Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a freebie as well. So the big broadcasting rules for me are. Monday to Friday, no freebies. Stay in the studio for the interview.

It was magic round. No freebies. Jason Pine went on that too. Yeah, yeah, but I, no, he's a leader in the broadcasting. Okay, fair enough. As opposed to you. Okay, Mike Hosking, Mike Hosking, Mike Oskine. Do I click myself? Half performance review, half interview.

Thank you, Mike. And he's out of here. See you, Mike Oskig. Take your Gucci bag and get out. See you, mate. Love to see you, Mike. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike.

I see you, mate. That was very funny, mate. You're a legend.