The winners and losers in brutal battle for Sydney radio supremacy

The Sydney radio market is an arena where kings and queens are crowned, or decapitated, by their corporate overlords with astonishing speed. The all-important breakfast slot is littered with the bodies of those who have tried and failed to break through – just ask Judith Lucy, Sophie Monk, Erin Molan, Sam Frost, Dave Hughes, Grant Denyer and Gold Logie winner Rove McManus. But never before have its two biggest stars vacated the stage via self-immolation.

The spectacular disintegration of the 25-year broadcast partnership between Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson is a uniquely Sydney drama, with big ramifications for an industry which still attracts plenty of listeners and advertisers but faces growing structural changes and talent headaches.

The calamity which has befallen KIIS FM and its owner, ARN Media, is one of several forces reshaping the brash, loud and influential Sydney radio landscape. Very few can confidently predict what listeners should expect over coming months, let alone years.

Consider the changes: KIIS FM is without its star duo, and bracing for an ugly court battle over whether ARN had the right to tear up Sandilands and Henderson’s record-breaking $200 million, 10-year contract. Over at 2GB, the network is preparing for the billionaire Laundy publican family to take over after they struck a deal with Nine Entertainment in January to buy the station and others in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth for $56 million. Nine is the publisher of this masthead.

Nova’s offering is in a state of transition after its breakfast team of 15 years, Ryan “Fitzy” Fitzgerald and Michael “Wippa” Wipfli – alongside former Home and Away star Kate Ritchie, who joined more recently – pulled up stumps and moved to the afternoon drive slot. Drive’s previous occupants, Ricki-Lee Coulter and Tim Blackwell, switched to breakfast.

At Gold, which is also owned by ARN, Brendan “Jonesy” Jones and Amanda Keller have also given up breakfasts for the drive slot; they were replaced by a national show hosted by Christian O’Connell from Melbourne, which is tanking in Sydney after shedding 74,000 listeners in its first six weeks. And after a string of controversial changes, several ABC 702 offerings are also struggling to make or maintain material gains.

Amid the fallout from Kyle and Jackie O’s implosion, a new tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign by Triple M’s Beau, Cat & Woodsy is illustrative of the scale of change. Beau Ryan, Cat Lynch and Aaron Woods have only been on air together since March 2025, but in promotional materials are now calling themselves “Sydney’s longest-running breakfast team”.

Ryan, a former NRL star forging a successful second act in television and radio, credits Henderson with helping him get a start in breakfast radio. The two are close, and the industry is rife with speculation he could pair up with his former mentor should she return to KIIS FM once the dust settles, perhaps as a duo dubbed “Jackie O and Beau”.

But speaking on his own program, Ryan cast doubt over whether Henderson would seek supremacy in breakfast radio again. “She could do whatever she wanted to, and she would succeed in brekkie radio,” he said. “But why would she? She’s got nothing to prove. She’s made serious money, and she’s been on very, very big money for a long time.”

The Sandilands and Henderson-sized void creates serious dangers for ARN, and opportunities for others. While there is a chance Sandilands could return to the breakfast slot should a legal challenge against his dismissal be successful, most radio executives are war-gaming for a future where The Kyle and Jackie O Show is gone and its listeners up for grabs.

Most established radio stars are under contract until at least the end of the year, making poaching difficult. KIIS will also be reluctant to spend big on new faces until it’s clear Sandilands and Henderson have no chance of resuming their contracts.

Sydney media types are obsessed with the idea Today show host Karl Stefanovic could turn to radio, after the Herald’s CBD column revealed ARN held informal talks with Stefanovic’s camp over a possible move to poach him. Stefanovic’s contract at Nine is reportedly due to expire at the end of this year, and his successful self-funded foray into podcasting this year shows he is not afraid to plan for the future.

Some Sandilands and Henderson diehards will hang around for the drama of what happens next, but won’t stay forever. Many more will splinter to other programs skewed towards a younger demographic.

Radio ratings released on Thursday offer a clue as to who could pick up Sandilands and Henderson’s listeners in the crucial 25-39 age demographic. About 32.6 per cent of the network’s overall audience sits in this category. NOVA has 41.3 per cent of that cohort, and Triple M 33.6. The KIIS audience is unlikely to head to 2GB in large numbers, given the station is predominantly talkback focused and more than half its audience is aged 55 and over. The 25-39 demographic makes up just 13 per cent.

The latest ratings results only covered a week of the Sandilands saga, when Henderson took leave from the show, but it was unclear whether her absence was only temporary or even a publicity stunt. The next survey runs from the start of March until April 4, which covers the ugliest aspects of KIIS FM’s detonation.

When Sandilands and Henderson left 2Day FM in 2014, their audience followed. In their last survey at 2Day, the station recorded a 10.4 per cent audience share. After they defected, it collapsed to 3.8 per cent and has hovered about there ever since. Seven different presenting combos have failed to return 2Day to its former glory.

The breakfast ratings survey released on Thursday gave 2Day’s breakfast show a 3.6 per cent share compared to a whopping 16.6 for Ben Fordham at 2GB, KIIS’s 12.7, Smooth FM’s 10.1, Nova’s 8.4 and 7.1 for ABC Sydney with Craig Reucassel. 2Day FM languished on 3.6.

One radio veteran told the Herald that KIIS FM now faced a similar position to 2Day FM. In essence, a station is the brand and the presenters are the product. If the KIIS brand was solid enough to withstand the loss of its product, it should be able to rebuild quickly and move on. But few believe KIIS has a strong brand without The Kyle and Jackie O Show. To make matters worse, it also has a revenue problem, with ARN’s last annual report showing revenue has fallen 10 per cent, and likely much higher in Sydney where Sandilands and Henderson ran wild with controversy after controversy. The report said a key “headwind” for the company’s performance last financial year was a “heightened advertiser sensitivity to brand safety” – code for corporate Australia freaking out about being associated with the station.

Ultimately, some of the best entertainment in Sydney radio this year might not actually be on air, but in a courtroom as a judge determines whether ARN wrongfully terminated the contracts of their star presenters to get out of its disastrously expensive $200 million deal.

If Sydney does radio like no other city, it also leads the field on high-profile legal battles. The key players of the Kyle and Jackie O debacle are all fixtures of the city’s social, political and media elite. Sandilands’ legal team includes dispute resolution lawyer Kevin Lynch of Johnson Winter Slattery, and Philip Boncardo, who helped Antoinette Lattouf win her unlawful termination case against the ABC. He has also enlisted support from Scott Robertson, SC, who examined former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian at Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings in 2021.

Sandilands and Henderson’s boss, Australian Radio Network chairman Hamish McLennan, has a lot riding on the outcome of any court case.

Nicknamed “The Hammer”, McLennan is a corporate heavyweight who also had a stint as chairman of Rugby Australia between 2020 and 2023. His reputation already diminished by the disastrous hiring of Eddie Jones as Wallabies coach, McLenann is no casual observer in this latest saga. He is likely to play a central role in any court case given he presided over the crisis over the past month and signed off on Sandilands and Henderson’s contract.

“Same chairman signed it, same chairman wants to take it away,” Sandilands said of McLennan and the contract this week. Since the deal was signed, a flurry of ARN executives have left, including its chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief commercial officer, and KIIS Sydney content director Tony Aldridge.

McLennan is the only senior figure from that time still in the building – and might end up being the one left to turn the lights out.

Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter.