Is Kyle coming back to Brisbane?
Rumours gain pace that Kyle and Jackie O Show will go national.
The Kyle and Jackie O Show already bills itself as “Australia’s biggest radio show”, but is the KIIS 1065 Sydney breakfast program about to go national?
Kyle Sandilands has made no secret of the fact that he wants to dominate the airwaves across the nation.
With the show’s return to no. 1 position in yesterday’s ratings survey, the duo have just that much more leverage in their contract negotiations with KIIS owners ARN, which are set to see them either stay at the station for another decade or go elsewhere (probably their old home of 2Day, which has struggled since they left).
ARN boss Duncan Campbell seemed to pour cold water on the idea of a networked K&JO Show in an interview, where he said, “Well I mean, we would have done that anyway, wouldn’t we, already, if we were going to do that?” I wonder if that sounded more convincing when heard than it does in print …
Campbell talked about the failure of networking Richard Stubbs into Sydney (he was also tried in Brisbane for a while) — but that was 30 years ago, and a lot has changed in the world of media and communications since then.
Stubbs may have been unknown outside of Melbourne back in the 1990s, but Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson are no strangers to audiences Australia wide.
A whole generation has grown up with national brekkie shows on TV, and tech improvements mean that local programming “windows” (weather, traffic, football) can be inserted seamlessly.
From a business perspective, the reality is that margins are getting tighter all the time. If you’re going to pay your top talent a shed-tonne of money to keep them onboard, then you have to get the best possible bang for your buck.
And at the end of the day, if ARN won’t network the show but Southern Cross Austereo says it will, that’s where Kyle and Jackie O will go.
Of course, if this happens, there will be casualties. In Brisbane, it would mean the end of the show currently hosted by Robin Bailey, Terry Hansen and Kip Wightman.
Any such decision would seem harsh, especially given the strong result the station has just had in Survey 6.
However, the rumour mill has it that Hansen and Wightman will be out of contract by the end of the year, and that Bailey could end up with a network gig, possibly with a podcast. She certainly has a lot of stories that would work well in that realm.
It’s hard to think that any of the three would be out of a gig for long.
In Melbourne, Sandilands would be nudging out former friend Jase Hawkins, better known to Brisbane audiences as Labrat. The two had a spectacular falling out many years ago and it’s somewhat of a surprise that they’ve been working for the same company in recent years.
Would Brisbane audiences take to Kyle and Jackie O? Well, for starters, Sandilands is a local — he famously grew up in Manly and infamously spent some time living on the streets.
For years now, KIIS has been in a close dance with B105, Nova 106.9 and Triple M, both in overall audience share and in the important breakfast shift.
Brekkie, which traditionally generates the most revenue, hasn’t seen a tearaway winner for many, many moons. Long gone are the days of B105 Morning Crew doubling the ratings of their nearest competitor, or the ABC’s Spencer Howson charging three or four points clear of the pack.
It could very well be a risk worth taking — with little to lose but, potentially, a lot to gain if they can blitz the pack and charge advertisers a premium.
Any decision, of course, would be about the big picture — and the big picture is that broadcast radio is in decline as media consumption habits change. A bold move like networking K&JO could give it a jolt that extends the life of the medium. (Or it could be one more nail in the coffin of a medium that is best served on a local level.)
It’s also worth remembering that any deal to take the K&JO show national would almost certainly involve ARN’s extensive network of regional stations.
If those stations lose their local breakfast shows, there’ll be a lot of unhappy listeners and pressure on the regulator and government to ensure a minimum amount of local content in all markets.
Meanwhile, congrats to Nova’s Ash, Luttsy and Susie O’Neill, who have the biggest share in Brisbane breakfast in Survey 6, and shout-outs to all the other winners.
HOW TO LOSE LISTENERS
Still on the subject of radio, Thursday’s ratings saw another flat result for 4BC, which has recently doubled down on localism by replacing Sydney-based Ray Hadley in the morning shift with born-and-bred Brisburbian Bill McDonald.
It’s too early to know how Bill is faring, but his colleague Peter Gleeson managed to lose share in the Drive show he took over from Neil Breen a few months ago.
It was a drop of 0.3 per cent, but one wonders what the result might be next time, since Gleeson has boldly “barred” supporters of the state government from listening to the station.
Here’s some extraordinary audio of him reading a listener’s message:
Seems Gleeso got the memo about the current premier Annastacia Palaszczuk being a bit on the nose, but not the one saying that, to advance in the ratings, you’ve got to appeal to as many people as possible.
Perhaps he thought he was channelling former UK newspaper editor Kelvin MacKenzie, who once forbade a reader from buying The Sun.
The problem for Gleeso is that unlike, say, Kyle Sandilands, he hasn’t earnt the right to slag off anybody, especially since he’s still living in a glass house.
Update: That’s probably enough radio for now, but many other rumours are circulating about potential line-up changes next year, and un-inked contracts floating around. One involves Triple M’s breakfast line-up, where mainstay Greg “Marto” Martin is said to be moving on after many, many years. Let me know if you’ve heard anything I haven’t.
Disclosure: Brett Debritz has been heard on most Brisbane radio stations over the years and worked at 4BC for 15 months in 2021-22, and at ABC Brisbane for four hours in 2023.