KAYA FM breakfast show host Kgomotso Matsunyane has received a bad Christmas gift from her employer.

Just two days before Christmas Matsunyane was given the sack by Kaya FM from her prime-time slot Good Morning Gauteng, according to a well-placed Sowetan source.

Matsunyane, a respected filmmaker, landed the top slot when Phat Joe was fired for making unsavoury comments about athlete Caster Semenya, following a controversial gender inquiry in October last year.

In an interesting move, instead of replacing Phat Joe with the usual veterans of South African radio, Kaya FM went for Matsunyane who had not worked in radio.

She is a filmmaker and former editor of O Magazine.

Matsunyane co-owns TOM Pictures with Akin Omotoso and Robbie Thorpe. TOM has produced TV programmes such as the multi-award winning A Place Called Home.

On the Kaya breakfast show Matsunyane was partnered with author Ndumiso Ngcobo, whose fate on the show is unknown.

Ngcobo is the author of two books - Some of My Best Friends are White and Just Coz I am Black.

Matsunyane and Ngcobo seemed to have settled down after initially battling to stamp their authority on Phat Joe's fading shadow.

They had been hosting the show for slightly more than a year when Matsunyane was fired.

Matsunyane refused to comment, referring questions to station manager Greg Maloka.

Sowetan left several messages for Maloka. At the time of going to press he had not yet come back to us.

Kaya FM programme manager Maekanya Morothoba at first pleaded ignorance about the fate of the two DJs. He said he was on leave.

However, when pressed further, he responded. "I am on leave, and so are they. When people go on leave it does not mean that they have been fired.

"As far as I know they are on leave," Morothoba said.

For more than a week now the slot has been occupied by veteran radio man George Manyosi.