L-R: Heidi Murphy, Patrina Jones, Adam Johnstone, Nikole Gunn, Rebecca Maddern. Front: Carrie Bickmore. Image credit: James Penlidis
24 years ago today – when Nova 100 launched in Melbourne – photographer James Penlidis unwittingly captured what would become one of Australian radio’s most symbolic images.
A group of young women – all on the cusp of their radio journeys – and all of whom would go on to make their mark on the industry in the most extraordinary way.
Tasked with setting up the Nova 100 newsroom from scratch, legendary radio journo Nikole ‘Gunners’ Gunn hired Carrie Bickmore, Patrina Jones, Rebecca Maddern, Heidi Murphy and Adam Johnstone (all pictured in main photo) to fill the on-air roles.
Within 18-months, this news team had won international recognition for a documentary on the Bali bombings.
Fast forward a quarter of a century and today, Bickmore is one of the most well-known faces in Australian television and radio.
Beyond co-hosting the Hit Network’s Carrie & Tommy show, Bickmore was recently named the 2025 Victorian Australian of the Year, having raised a phenomenal $27 million for brain cancer research over the past decade.
Patrina Jones – affectionately known to legion of listeners as ‘Pats’ – is today the co-host of Melbourne’s #1 FM and soon-to-be-national Breakfast program The Christian O’Connell Show.
A multiple ACRA-winning journalist, she also hosts the Rage Against The Menopause podcast.
Jones remembers the day the Nova group photo was taken.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but that photo really encapsulates what was a defining era of women in Australian media,” she tells Radio Today.
“All of these women have gone on to do sensational things and I am so incredibly proud to have witnessed their rise. I am happy to say they remain some of my dearest friends.”
Rebecca Maddern went on to forge a hugely successful television career, now Chief Sports Presenter on Seven News Melbourne.
In 2016, she made TV history, becoming the first female presenter of Channel Nine’s The Footy Show.
A multi-Quill Award winning journalist, Heidi Murphy went on to become the Executive Producer of Neil Mitchell’s top-rating talk program on Melbourne’s 3AW, as well as being a regular fill-in host, Sunday morning co-host and a senior reporter at Channel Nine.
Images: LinkedIn, X, SCA, James Penlidis and supplied.