Don’t dance on Kyle and Jackie O’s grave – they were the best thing on radio

Sometimes, while walking around Washington, DC, in the evening, or on the treadmill at the gym, I’ll tune into Kyle and Jackie O’s breakfast show. It’s not quite the same as being in the car back home, cackling along with the windows down and radio blaring. Yes, I am a long-standing listener and fan.

The fact that’s considered an “admission” in some circles is an indictment on those circles, not on me.

While the term “sneering classes” is usually deployed by lazy conservatives to undermine progressive thought, there is no word other than sneering to describe the generally inner-city, ABC-listening critics of FM radio’s most successful duo. They are now celebrating like their team just won the grand final. And they’re dancing on the grave of a 27-year partnership that, at its best, produced a world-class product that grabbed attention around the globe.

Just as one example, in 2017, America’s highest-paid radio star, Howard Stern, was jealous that troubled actor Charlie Sheen had called into The Kyle and Jackie O Show, not his. Stern proceeded to play excerpts of their interview on his own program.

Regardless of audience or reach, what made Kyle and Jac’s banter good was that it was real. Australian FM radio is generally disappointing: predictable, scripted segments to push out prizes and get to the next ad break. When Sandilands and Henderson chatted or interacted with their team, the conversation went off on tangents and surprised you, often hilariously.

It wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s OK. But Kyle and Jackie O’s haters were hellbent on shutting the thing down, whether through complaints to the broadcast regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), or by petitioning the station’s advertisers.

The biggest grave-dancer of all is the activist group Mad F—ing Witches, which is taking “credit” for the show’s demise. This outfit, apparently unable to change its radio dial, has been trying to destroy the program for years.

Sure, Sandilands gave them a lot of ammunition over the years. He mishandled a live lie-detector segment that went wrong when a 14-year-old girl said she had been raped. Joking that comedian Magda Szubanski could lose weight in a “concentration camp” didn’t land well. There are numerous other examples.

But almost all critics don’t listen to the show, don’t appreciate the tone and don’t get the full context. All they see are quotes printed in clickbait news stories. And it’s not just that they don’t listen to the program they love to hate – they wouldn’t deign to listen to it.

When the holier-than-thou types look down on the country’s most popular FM radio show, they also look down on the tradies, suburban parents, retail workers and builders who love it.

There’s also a touch of tall-poppy syndrome about it all. They were too successful, too loud, paid too much, and had to be taken down a peg.

Worse than that, though, was the attempt to hobble the show because of its perceived “vulgarity”. Last year, ACMA pinged station owner ARN for multiple breaches of “decency laws”, confirming that 1950s-style Australian censorship is alive and well today. The media regulator objected to a segment in which Kyle and Jackie O listened to audio clips of staff members urinating, and had to guess whose pee stream belonged to whom. Other problematic segments contained “lewd discussions about masturbation” or “an offensive description of a sexual position”.

God forbid we recognise the existence of sex and sexual organs. But no one is forcing you to – you can change the channel.

Unfortunately, in its pursuit of the Melbourne market, it seemed like ARN was caving to this censorious streak, promising to clean up the crudity and telling Melburnians in an advertisement: “We’re behaving.”

Although I listen less frequently now, it seemed to me the show had lost some of its edginess and gone a little flat. You can’t jettison a successful formula to attract a bunch of people who were probably never going to give you a chance anyway.

It’s telling that this implosion was seemingly sparked by a fight over the program’s quality, with Sandilands accusing Henderson of habitually losing interest and being “away with the fairies”. It was a relatively mild accusation.

Regular listeners will know that both presenters – when they cared – fretted over the quality of the program, whether it was the banter, guests or production values.

Sandilands and Henderson might be back next week. Who knows? Things move fast and money talks. It will be a shame if they can’t make it work – a sad end to a juggernaut that was actually an exemplar of the medium.

If this is it – well, all good things must come to an end.

Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.