Award winning comedian Matt Okine will replace Tom Ballard in 2014 as the co-host for the popular triple j Breakfast along with Alex Dyson. The announcement was made on air this morning, less than a week after comedian Tom Ballard announced he was leaving the show to focus on his real passions “standup comedy and not getting up at 4am.”

Okine is currently the host of SBS2 weekly A-League program Thursday FC and has a solid reputation as a touring comedian. He was recently nominated for the prestigious Best Newcomer at Edinburgh Fringe, he won Best Of The Fest at the 2013 Sydney Comedy Festival and in 2012 took out Best Newcomer at Melbourne International Comedy Festival for his show Being Black n Chicken n Shit.

Current Breakfast host team Tom and Alex have their fair share of awards as well, having recently taken out the Best Comedy Release ARIA award for their album The Bits We’re Least Ashamed Of. They’ve also recently undertaken a naked performance of the empowering Helen Reddy classic, I Am Woman, all in the name of raising funds for Syrian refugees.

Okine will perform his stand-up at The Metro in Sydney on Friday 13 Dec at Tom Ballard’s farewell, before officially taking up the Breakfast show mantle on Monday 13 January.

Watch: New triple j breakfast host revealed!