Steph Hughes and Dom Alessio: actually aged 18-25

National youth broadcasting network, triple j, has announced two new presenters and a new format for its showcase of Australian music, Home & Hosed. Dom Alessio, 25, and Steph Hughes, 22, are taking over from the venerable Caroline Tran, who’s currently on her second maternity leave from the broadcaster.

This news won’t come as a surprise to triple j-listening night owls – the station has road-tested both Alessio and Hughes with mid-dawn shifts over summer, and it was speculated back in January that Alessio might be taking over at Home & Hosed.

While it’s been common in the past for triple j to shunt its existing on-air talent around the grid to fill vacancies at established programs, Alessio and Hughes appear hand-picked for their new gig. Melbourne-based Hughes is a drummer who’s played with bands including Screamfeeder, Children Collide, Dick Diver and Love Is Science Fiction. She was also the booker for Catfood Press, a DIY all-ages music venue in East Brunswick, Melbourne.

Sydney-based Alessio is one of the most prominent and energetic voices in Australian indie music journalism. His previous broadcasting experience with community radio station FBi would have made him attractive to triple j, but Alessio was also associate editor for street press The Brag, and has written for Mess+Noise, Cyclic Defrost and Groupie magazines.

More relevantly for triple j, Alessio is a co-founder of one of Australia’s most popular local music blogs, Who The Bloody Hell Are They? This background in online media will surely come in handy for the new direction in which triple j plans to take Home & Hosed.

While triple j has one of Australia’s most popular radio station websites, and many of its shows have podcasts and video podcasts (sorry, I refuse to call them ‘vodcasts’; what is this, A Clockwork Orange?), the web presences for individual shows vary wildly in content and scope (compare the breakfast team’s deluxe minisite with punk and hardcore speciality show Short.Fast.Loud). Alessio’s and Hughes’s brief is to develop the Home & Hosed blog into a much beefier presence, with a minimum of two posts daily and various new and unsigned tracks to stream. And in case blog comments aren’t enough (so far, triple j’s program director, Chris Scaddan, appears to be the most enthusiastic commenter), there’ll also be a forum, which is very ABC – they’ve got a forum for just about everything.

Scads says in the presser: “The time is right for Home & Hosed to become the number one place online to discover new Australian music of all types. The online platform is perfect for Home & Hosed because it’s immediate, on demand and allows in-depth discussion.”

Far be it for The Enthusiast to suggest that the rise of music blogging has left triple j scrambling for relevance, but Alessio and Hughes will undeniably be a breath of fresh air for the station, many of whose staff are somewhat older than the 18-25 demographic it ostensibly represents. Both have proven track records of uncovering new and innovative local artists, and we look forward to seeing how the Home & Hosed website will develop its own voice within the bureaucratic minefield of ABC policy and the criticism-plagued hit list format. Good luck, guys!

Disclosure: At one time I was deputy editor of triple j’s magazine, jmag, to which I continue to contribute on a freelance basis.