Amanda Keller admits size of Kyle and Jackie O’s staff has ‘pissed me off’
WSFM’s breakfast stalwart Amanda Keller has admitted the size of the team working on Kyle and Jackie O’s Kiis1065 breakfast show has “pissed me off”.
In a wide-ranging interview at today’s National Radio Conference Keller also said she could not understand why she and long-time co-host of the top rating FM show Brendan Jones had not been offered a TV show together.
During the interview, by Media Week editor James Manning, Jones also admitted getting to number one had meant they had gotten more recognition from advertisers, adding: “We spent a lot of time getting drunk with 20 somethings from media agencies on a Friday afternoon, and within a week they would be out of a job and we would have to do it all again.”
The pair said part of the sudden success of WSFM, which has moved to the top of the FM station charts in Sydney, was a recent rebrand from a ‘Classic Hits’ to a ‘Pure Gold’ format and tweak in music programming.
Keller commented: “I think the ad campaign was good because there were a lot of people who thought we were older than we were as a show. That ad gave it an energy that people did not expect.”
Next year the duo will celebrate ten years on air together, with Keller saying the secret to their success was a genuine deep friendship, although she admitted he was sometimes “like a cheese grater to my face” with some intentionally inflamatory comments.
“He’ll say things like, ‘that shirt’s on low rotation’, or ‘those pants look comfortable, you should wear them for the weekend’, or ‘you must have good washing materials, you’ve had that top for ages’. He pushed the buttons,” she admitted.
Asked whether the number of staff on the Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson Kiis1065 breakfast show, which is recorded down the corridor in the Australian Radio Network’s North Ryde headquarters, annoyed them, Keller admitted: “Earlier in the year it certainly felt like they had a lot more staff than us, and I wondered how I would be with that.
“There have been days when that’s pissed me off. There was one day when one of our producers was sick and so we just had one producer, and it was the day we went number one in the ratings, and I thought this is a good day for that.”
She then quipped of the sick producer “so we sacked her,” with Jones chipping in “and she was pregnant too”.
They also said the presence of the superstar duo in their building had meant they had attracted a higher calibre of guests this year, with Jones adding: “We do get better guests now we’re number one. We had Nicole Kidman and Lady Gaga.
“When I first got to North Ryde they freaked out when we had Jamie Durie coming there, and we had Lady Gaga. Kyle and Jackie O didn’t get her.”
Alex Hayes is a guest of Commercial Radio Australia and the National Radio Conference in Melbourne
Amanda – you don’t need a big team to make you sound good. You just need yourself.
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Keller sounds bitter.
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Amanda says she cannot understand why she and Brendan Jones have not been offered a TV show together??
They have worked on a TV show together…. The SBS smash hit, Swift & Shift Couriers.
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Not bitter, just truthful. A rare commodity.
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As they say cream rises to the top. Great to see the vision Graeme Edwards had in the duo has paid off many times over.
Great to see & congratulations to the whole team who did well at the ACRA’s too.
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Jonesy is all class!
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Okay Amanda seems you don’t seem to really grasp “why you’re number one”, and here’s the truth, it’s cold, you may not want to accept it, because it’s less about talent and more about listener monopoly.
K&J have been number 1 for years, a portion of their listeners stayed with 2day Fm, call it variety. Intact call it demo sharing. In fact call it a miracle given K&J also compete with both Nova and 2Day and still go head to head with you for the #1 spot.
Now there’s you Amanda, your easy listening demo has how much competition, oh yeah… No competing stations in your demographic, and the introduction of Kiis has further corners your one way street . So I wouldn’t tap yourself on the shoulder and expect a TV show any time soon darl.
And common, the entertainment preices and seize spots in your show are watered down, you don’t need a large team. C’mon, seriously? If you really are a great on air team, screw acras we all know that’s a joke, you’d have been number 1 all last year when you had mix to compete with in your demo. Did that happen?
So now that we’ve brought you back down to earth, take a moment to bath in the truth, you have no competition in your large demo… And the ratio of ratings from easy listening demo to chr demo compared to Kyle and Jack competition ? Basically… You’re getting you ar$e kicked. Beat then by a good 3 or 4 points and you’ll earn out respect.
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Just one question. Is Industry Peep from Kiis or 2Day.
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Industry peep has no idea. That entire diatribe ignores that WSFM actually does have a competitor for easy listening. It’s called smooth95.3. Also, lern two speel FFS.
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Im a 20 something and Id love to get drunk with you Keller 🙂
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Amanda
You need to be at a better Radio Station either at 2UE or 2GB and bring Jonesy & other WSFM staff with you to either 2UE or 2GB when either your contract ends or it is terminated by ARN. ARN has a partner in Fairfax Radio Network so it is a chance that WSFM has a chance of losing listeners to 2UE.
Amanda you and you WSFM Colleagues have a competitor for their listeners on AM Radio and that is 2UE 954AM Australia’s oldest Commercial Radio Station.
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