Striking out on their own: Mitch Churi and Prue MacSween announce projects
Former KIIS presenter Mitch Churi announced this week that he will launch a chat show, titled “The Mitch Churi Chat Show”, while Prue MacSween’s “Beauty and the Beast” television series has returned, under a new format.
Churi had been with ARN’s KIIS for nearly a decade. In 2019, he began hosting duties of a national weeknight program, and in 2023 he joined Laura Byrne and Brittany Hockley on afternoon show “The Pick Up”. In late 2024, he was told his two roles would not be returning in 2025.
He was among a number of high-profile departures in Australian radio at the time. This also included ABC Sydney’s Morning presenter Sarah Macdonald, Triple M host Mark Geyer, the retirement of Ray Hadley and John Laws, as well as the departure of popular 6PR Perth hosts, Julie-ann Sprague and Tod Johnston.
Earlier this year, 2DayFM breakfast show, Hughesy, Ed and Erin, was also abruptly ended mid-week, after four years in the slot, which SCA CEO, John Kelly, confirmed to Mumbrella was a network decision.
Mitch Churi
“I just want to say that it wasn’t my decision,” Churi said on “The Pick Up” at the time.
“It wasn’t my call. I really wanted to stay on this show with the two of you [Byrne and Hockley], and I wanted to stay on The Night Show and I wanted to stay at ARN and KIIS.”
Eight months later, and after a couple of projects including a Linkedin marketing campaign and a plum hosting gig on Nova, he has taken to social media to share his new venture: “The Mitch Churi Chat Show”.
“It’s been eight months since I was very publicly fired from what I thought was my dream job … And I’m finally read to tell you that I have a brand new show,” he said in the post.
“The last couple of months have been really hard for me, at times, to lose a job that was so much of what I thought was Mitch, that made up so much of my identity, was really hard, harder than I thought it was going to be to deattach [sic] from that person that I was and that job that I had from 19-years-old to 29-years-old.
“I’ve only had one idea since I left, and this is the idea … It is the most exciting thing I’ve ever worked on, I’ve never felt more excited or fulfilled.”
He described the new show as “Call Her Daddy meets Graham Norton but with me and some very, very familiar names and faces”.
Over the coming weeks, he will share the process of building a chat show on his social media as well as more details of what the chat show will entail, before officially launching.
Meanwhile, former TV and radio star Prue MacSween recently announced the reboot of the television series “Beauty and the Beast”, in a new podcast format titled “Booty and the Beasts – The Podcast”.
While reviving the spirit of the show that “scandalised, shocked, and entertained” Australia, the podcast will feature a fresh lineup of outspoken “Booties” alongside some of the original, much-loved “Beauties”.
(L-R, clockwise): Rob McKnight, Prue MacSween, Tim Blair, Libbi Gorr, Lucy Zelić, and Carlotta
MacSween said it answers the “growing demand” for unfiltered, unapologetic, and non-PC entertainment.
“Everywhere I go, people celebrate the original show and ask when it will return. It was a favourite with people of all ages, who enjoyed the refreshing honesty, exchange of views, irreverence, battle of the sexes and laughs. This is what the ‘Booty and Beasts – The Podcast’ will deliver,” she said in a release last week.
The cast includes former co-presenter Carlotta, former Senator Hollie Hughes, broadcaster Libbi Gorr and journalist Lucy Zelić, as well as commentator Rob McKnight, Daily Telegraph columnists Tim Blair and Joe Hildebrand, and entertainment reporter Craig Bennett.
The rotating panelists will address “all the big issues”, according to the release, including “a woman’s dilemma because her husband wants to mount her dryer above the washing machine and she says the spin cycle is the best part of her sex life, to dealing with ‘the Pause’, a wandering husband, nosey neighbour and a boyfriend who takes his model car to bed with him”.
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Lauren McNamara is a freelance journalist contributing to Mumbrella. She previously spent three years at the publication, most recently as the associate editor. She first joined in 2022 after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left her staff role at Mumbrella in August 2025.
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topics
Beauty and the Beast
Booty and the Beasts – The Podcast
Mitch Churi
Prue MacSween
The Mitch Churi Talk Show
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