Source and entire article SMH Sue Javes

Hamish Blake and Andy Lee earn big money, date beautiful women, make the A-list social set and guest-star on top-rating television shows. Yet tune into 2Day FM on any afternoon during the week and you would swear you were listening to two knockabout university mates goofing off between classes. As far as the two comics are concerned that's what they still are, in their heads at least, despite all the trappings of success.

"It's like when you're a teenager; sometimes you have to pull on a suit and go to your uncle's wedding," Blake says. "It doesn't mean that's who you are."

When Blake and Lee slipped onto the Melbourne airwaves in 2006, their one claim to fame was a promising but embarrassingly short-lived television show. Two years later they have turned the radio market on its head, commanding a national audience of 2 million and sending rival networks scrambling to find their own drive-time comedy acts. Akmal Saleh, Ed Kavalee, Cal Wilson, Wil Anderson, Anthony Lehmann, Peter Berner, Jono Coleman and Julia Zemiro can all thank Hamish and Andy to some extent for their jobs in drive time. They were hired to stem the flow of listeners making a beeline to Hamish and Andy on 2Day.

Blake and Lee's motto for the show is simple. Make each other laugh and have fun. "The reason it all came about is because we made each other laugh back in uni," Lee says. "We discovered that we could actually make a living from it - luckily, because our parents were questioning why we were skipping uni all the time. So every day on radio we don't tell each other what we are going to say. There are things I know Hamish will find funny and thankfully people listening in find it funny too."

Blake says he feels guilty sometimes. "You might catch yourself feeling a bit tired and a voice in your head goes, 'Hang on a sec, are you actually complaining about your job?' The only reason we care about ratings is so we can keep the show on air."

When Lee began dating international model Megan Gale, 2Day executives were privately concerned that it might tarnish the comedy duo's image. After all, the funny, hapless bloke you'd like to have a drink with doesn't usually end up with the supermodel. "I can understand why that was a concern but it hasn't happened," Lee says. "It comes down to the person Megan is far more than the person I am. Models are put on a pedestal but Megs likes a beer, we go to the footy. It should have been her superiors worrying about what I would do to her image."

Lee and Blake have signed a three-year contract that commits them to 2Day until the end of 2010. Apart from regular work on Rove, they have ruled out pursuing other television projects for now. "We don't want to short-change listeners by sounding tired on air," Blake says.

The downside of their success is that the other networks are throwing everything at them to try to knock them off their pedestal. So far this has had no impact, although 2Day will be keen to see the first survey figures for the year, due out tomorrow.