Kyle and Jackie O; The biggest bust-up in Australian media ever
In the end, KIIS FM breakfast presenter Jackie “O” Henderson opted for the nuclear option. She split from radio partner of 27 years Kyle Sandilands on Tuesday, prompting her bosses at ARN Media to end her contract, which was part of a staggering $200 million deal for the pair to offer over ten years. The Kyle and Jackie O Show Until December 2034.
Rather than get angry at Henderson, ARN, which owns the KIIS and Gold networks, offered him another show and put the extremely wealthy Sandilands on the naughty step by promoting himself as radio’s baddest boy.
The company’s stilted statement told the stock market after trading hours: “Ms Jacqueline Henderson has advised that she ‘cannot continue to work with Mr Kyle Sandilands.'”
The company then gave the highest-paid figure in Australian radio a humiliating two weeks to make up for his “serious act of misconduct” following his infamous on-air criticism of Henderson on February 20. Otherwise ARN will tear up his contract and send him away.
In my opinion, this is the biggest, most significant bust in Australian media ever.
For decades, radio was extremely profitable; Of course, if you make the settings correctly. All you needed were a few microphones, a record (later CD) player and some mouths. Audiences came for the music or the news and stayed for the chat and conversation. Compared to a fully staffed TV studio, overhead costs were low.
But that was it then. We can now get all the music we need from streaming services, and nothing is more entertaining than a TikTok meme or a cat video on Instagram. ARN revenues and share prices have fallen, advertisers are wary of Sandilands’ brazen sexual repartee and big brands are no longer reliant on mass-market advertising.
Many will see the Sydney show’s expansion into Melbourne two years ago as the beginning of the end of the show. The adventure began with Kyle and Jackie O getting prettier when the prime minister called for an interview and the show’s crew appeared on air to discuss their tiny penises, evaporating from their vaginas, sleeping with their cousins and extra-long foreskins.
It’s been so nasty so far, but this nasty formula has worked in Sydney.
Age He summed up the programme’s impact on Melbourne like a spaceship from Planet Porn trying to crash despite ingrained media shortsightedness but crashing instead. The ratings were abysmal and Melbourne celebrated wholeheartedly rejecting the arrogant Sydneysiders just as it celebrated the Sydney Swans losing the AFL grand final.
The failure of the Emerald City poor’s southern attack was very predictable.
Exactly the same thing happened in 1987, when Fairfax (then owner of this newspaper) bought Channel 7 stations in Melbourne and Adelaide, canceled local shows and staff, and networked programs in Sydney. Ratings plummeted as Melburnians shut down in protest.
Now, Sandilands’ future and his ridiculously long 10-year contract remain uncertain. The breakfast show is useless without its female foil. Sandilands cannot be left alone today. He needs a partner, a gang, to fire and fight.
It remains to be seen whether Sandilands, now 54, is too proud to “eat the shit out” demanded of him by ARN management, now led by former Nine advertising sales executive Michael Stephenson, in a phrase that would not be out of place on his radio show.
Henderson had had dozens of incidents with the Sandilands before this, from a stunt that resulted in a teenager revealing she had been raped to the pair having a competition to guess the sound of their colleagues urinating. Meanwhile, his salary also increased. Now only Stephenson can guess what the full cost of his walking away will be.
And insiders say Sandilands would be too proud to accept the remedy. Moreover, it caused his colleague to walk. How popular will it now be with viewers and advertisers?
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Stephen Brook is a special correspondent for The Age and a CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously deputy editor of The Sunday Age. He is the former media editor of The Australian magazine and spent six years working for The Guardian in London.Connect with: X or email.
