Behind the $100-million smiles of Kyle and Jackie O lies an unprecedented exodus of staff that threatens their national radio ambitions.

Production staff associated with KIIS FM’s Kyle & Jackie O breakfast radio show have been exiting the show at an unprecedented rate according to network insiders.

While KIIS torchbearers Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson continue to enjoy the lavish rewards of their $100-million 10-year radio contracts, behind the scenes the turnover of staff on the breakfast show is contributing to the pressure cooker environment.

The staff turnover sees a younger and greener team driving Sandilands and Henderson’s much-vaunted and ambitious dreams to expand their audience by networking their program nationally.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O’s team members which have left in the past year.
In the past year, the Kyle & Jackie O radio show, has shed up to a dozen key staff associated with the breakfast show radio insiders have told news.com.au.

The departures began soon after the program launched to a lacklustre – some would say glacial – reception in Melbourne in April 2024.

Five months earlier in November 2023 radio executives at KIIS FM’s parent company ARN seemingly bet the house to re-sign the duo and in doing making the Kyle & Jackie O radio show the most expensive radio program in the country,

Yet by August 2024, while Sydney audiences remained strong, it was clear the program was in serious strife in the southern capital.

That same month the program’s executive producer Pedro Vitola resigned from the show after seven years at KIIS, two as program EP.

The staff turnover sees a younger and greener team driving Sandilands and Henderson’s show.
Three months later digital content producer Joshua Fox followed Vitola out the door.

Although the Kyle & Jackie O program is renowned for having a steady turnover of staff, Vitola would pin the failure of the show’s Melbourne launch on KIIS management which, he claimed, had failed to hire enough “experienced, innovative program producers to match the workload”.

The departures of the Kyle & Jackie O program’s audio producer Thomas Martin and content adviser and censor Nikita McGoram went largely unnoticed by the media in 2024 but no one was going to miss the news when ARN chief content officer Duncan Campbell, the man widely credited with poaching Sandilands and Henderson from rival company SCA in 2013, announced his departure.

Campbell’s retreat was put down to a broader restructure of ARN’s executive ranks.

He formally finished up in June two months after ARN CEO Ciaran Davis announced jobs in finance, sales support and tech were to be shed as the company moved to outsource to a global IT services and business solutions company, TCS, headquartered in Mumbai, India.

Radio sources claim ARN’s old tech force was tasked with teaching the new TCS workforce their jobs before taking up redundancy offers themselves.

ARN chief content officer Duncan Campbell, the man widely credited with poaching Sandilands and Henderson.

ARN CEO Ciaran Davis also announced his departure from the station.
Then in May came news KIIS FM program director Tony Aldridge was also departing.

Aldridge is said to have been the executive who plumped for the Kyle & Jackie O radio show to be networked to Melbourne – a strategy yet to bear fruit.

The departures of top-tier executives – including CEO Davis who announced his resignation last week – would be reflected down the line and also within the ranks of the Kyle & Jackie O breakfast show.

In June, Lachlan Mansell, the program’s Melbourne studio producer, departed after 15 months in the role.

Then in July, KIIS promotions co-ordinator Mel Maltby left.

Also gone is Megan Hui from promotions, along with the program’s guest booker Kirsten Ploog and, as of last month, digital producer Ella Kanna.

While to fans it may look like business as usual for the program’s stars as they burn through their money and post images of their luxury holidays, the turnover of staff on the show has triggered claims the duo’s dreams of taking their Sydney show to the nation could yet be some way off.

That’s may become clearer when the results of the sixth radio ratings survey are released on Tuesday.

HARMER’S RECORD STANDS

More than a decade before Jackie O became a household name, Melbourne comedian-turned-Sydney-radio-commentator Wendy Harmer – who turns 70 this week – was the hottest woman in FM radio.

Harmer and the radio breakfast show The Morning Crew, with Paul Holmes and Peter Moon, dominated the FM airwaves on 2DAYFM for a decade from 1993.

With her wit, wisdom and take-no-prisoners approach – not to mention her contagious laugh – Harmer helped pioneer the FM radio space bringing women listeners to radio and women broadcasters to prominence.

Comedian-turned-radio presenter Wendy Harmer helped pioneer the FM radio space. Picture: Richard Dobson
A long line of successful women including Jackie O, Amanda Keller, Fifi Box and Carrie Bickmore largely owe their million-dollar salaries to Harmer, the first woman on Australian radio to earn one.

Those who wrote Harmer off after she vacated the 2DAYFM hot seat in 2003 would not have believed the funny woman/author could do it a second time but in 2016 after she was recruited by ABC Local Radio in Sydney she went to work.

By 2018 Harmer had moved to the breakfast slot alongside Robbie Buck and the duo were soon throwing down the gauntlet to the highest rating radio show in Sydney, talk station 2GB and it’s host Alan Jones.

In their first joint ratings survey Harmer and Buck, a proven radio performer in his own right, delivered a 10.5 share making their program the second most listened-to radio show on the Sydney airwaves behind Jones on 2GB with his 15.5 share.

By survey six of 2021 Harmer and Buck had notched up a whopping 15.7 share.

An ABC spokeswoman has said it’s believed to be the station’s highest breakfast radio result on record.

Sadly it wasn’t enough though to bump off 2GB’s new breakfast host Ben Fordham who recorded an 18.8 result.

That same year Harmer and Buck resigned from the ABC.

Harmer with former ABC Breakfast co-host Robbie Buck once held the highest breakfast radio result on record for the ABC. Picture: Supplied

But it still wasn’t enough to knock over 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.
They offered little by way of explanation at the time but later said the pandemic, which had boosted radio audiences, and isolation, had worn her down.

This columnist can’t help but wonder if those more meagre ABC salaries didn’t also contribute.

Based on how ABC Sydney has been tracking since – down, well down, up slightly – it looks likely Harmer and Buck’s record will stand for a long time.

Harmer and Buck were replaced initially by James Valentine in 2022 and 2023, and in 2024 by Craig Reucassel.

That same year, 2024, the ABC began doing what to most seemed unthinkable, chasing a younger audience.

Much ground looks to be being lost in the pursuit of that audience.

In the latest ratings ABC Sydney with Reucassel was wallowing in fifth place behind KIIS, 2GB, Gold/WSFM and Smooth with a 7.6 share.

Happy birthday Wendy, and long may that record stand in the ABC archives as a reminder of the intelligence, passion, guts and spending power the recently-maligned yet former loyal Baby Boomer and Gen X (Buck) fans have long brought to the table.

COATES LISTS HOME FOLLOWING HEALTH CRISIS

The Sydney home of ailing Australia Olympics heavyweight John Coates and his second wife Orieta has finally hit the market.

The four-bedroom Drummoyne apartment has been listed with Ray White Rozelle which cites the apartment, purchased off the plan, as being 200m from Birkenhead Point factory outlet shopping complex and 600m from the Bay Run.

Former Olympic Chief John Coates has listed his Drummoyne home for sale. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.
One of seven in the Georges Crescent development, the apartment is described as a “sunlit sub-penthouse” with unobstructed views to Cockatoo and Snapper Islands, four double bedrooms and a double garage.

The listing coincides with Coates standing down from the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week due to his health.

Coates, who has survived bowel cancer, lung cancer and most recently had chemotherapy for thyroid cancer, is relocating to Burleigh Heads or so we hear.

The apartment is described as a “sunlit sub-penthouse. Picture: www.realestate.com.au

The apartment features four double bedrooms and a garage. Picture: www.realestate.com.au/
With his cancer specialists located in Sydney, he is expected to be a regular visitor – and possibly to the men-only Australian Club in Macquarie Street.

No word on whether Coates is a member of the institution or whether he’ll be the guest of a prominent member friend.

NINE’S STRANGE OMISSION

How strange the Sydney Morning Herald’s decision to acknowledge and identify the heavy-hitters in NRL chief Peter V’landys’ private box at Accor Arena on Sunday night – yet not the two directors of the Nine board featured prominently in a photo.

Was it a case of Nine’s editorial team sucking up to outgoing chair Catherine West and incoming chair Peter Tonagh and trying to keep the duo’s identities from the Getty photo archives?

Was it something else?

Why else would you not name Tonagh who sits plum in the centre of the frame – directly under the open mouth of the wildly bemused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese whose cheery expression suggests he was supporting the triumphant Broncos on the night in lieu of his own adored and outperformed Rabbitohs?

Guests seated in Peter V’landy’s private box for the 2025 NRL grand final including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, PNG PM James Marape, Former QLD Premier Peter Beattie, and outgoing Nine chair Catherine West sitting next to her replacement Peter Tonagh. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images
Compared to Albo, Tonagh does look bored … though no more so than West, in pink jacket, seated to his right.

Perhaps that’s why Nine editors chose to ignore the company’s own board directors in attendance at the footah.

West, as we’ve mentioned previously, loves a money-can’t-buy ticket to a prestige sporting event – though possibly loves a private box even more.

The outgoing Nine chair, who also resigned as a director of Nine’s board, became a regular at the Australian Open Tennis after Nine acquired the rights to the tournament.