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‘It humbled us’: Jackie O addresses Melbourne ratings bomb
Jackie 'O' Henderson had a busy 2024. She released a memoir that revealed her long-hidden struggle with prescription pills and exposed her various romantic trials.
She officially started a $200 million, 10-year contract with ARN, and launched a new podcast on top of her daily radio duties. But the one thing everyone wants to know is - how does she feel about the Kyle and Jackie O show failing so publicly in Melbourne?
Henderson was the final speaker at Commercial Radio & Audio’s HEARD conference, held on Tuesday afternoon at the ICC in Sydney.
She addressed the elephant in the room after about 15 minutes of soft-ball questions about writing a best-selling book.
“We launched into Melbourne obviously and it didn’t go gangbusters straight away,” she began.
“And, I think people are nervous to ask about that because maybe they associate that with a loss of pride or something, I don’t know – I’m not afraid to talk about that.”
For the uninitiated, the Kyle and Jackie O show swaggered into the Melbourne breakfast market last April, with a multi-million-dollar launch campaign and plenty of tasteless stunts. One example was sending a Barbie-pink K+J van to Nova’s Jase and Lauren radio event weeks after taking their KIIS101.1 breakfast slot away from them.
The first full ratings book they were on air saw them take a 6.1% share, which dropped to 5.2% the following survey. By the end of 2024, they held a 5% share, and were the eighth-biggest show in their timeslot – just 0.7% higher than narrowly focussed SEN’s sports breakfast show.
“I think in a weird way Melbourne not being a success instantly is a good thing for us,” Henderson reasons.
“We’ve been doing breakfast for more than 20 years, and there have been times where the show has inevitably gone off track a little bit, because each day you kind of do things, you might push boundaries or test the limits and before you know it, you’re kind of over here,” she gestured with her arm, “when the essence of what people love is here. And you’ve gone over here too much.”
Henderson at HEARD.
The boundary-pushing hasn’t gone unnoticed.
During a senate hearing last November, Green’s Senator Hanson-Young asked the communications watchdog why they hadn’t acted on any of the 59 complaints they’d received since July that year about Sandilands and Henderson (Jackie O). Hanson Young questioned how content broadcast between 6am and 10am dealt with “jokes about people being gay, jokes about one of the producer’s Asian housemate, jokes about dating men who are not quote ‘white’, jokes about the sexual and racial profiles of other journalists from other stations, divisive and violent language about women and sex, vulgar detail about sex acts, comments on air that refer to fellow hosts as being ‘annoying bitch’ and ‘ho’, jokes about overweight women and mental health, and of course, the final point there about a competition where they got female staff to record themselves urinating, and then the boys had to figure out whose bits were contributing to that urine”.
It was quite the diatribe.
A week later, ARN’s then- chief content officer Duncan Campbell told Mumbrella that Sandilands had agreed to tone back what he called “the graphic sexual content” in order to win Melbourne.
Henderson admits that when the show first launched in Melbourne, they pushed the boundaries further.
“And by it not being a success straight away, it humbled us and it made us go, ‘Have we lost our way?’ It really made us reassess where we’re at, what we’re doing with the show, and, you know, do a reset.”
Henderson said the toned-down show is “sounding better than it has in a long time.”
“I really think we’ve got our groove back” she continued, “and I can feel it when I know when we’re on track and doing the things that make Kyle and I do great radio. You know, that smut has really been taken away and it’s just good. The chemistry, that’s where we excel, Kyle and I, we have really good chemistry and when we just talk shit, it’s good, you know, it’s entertaining, we don’t need any of that other stuff.”
Henderson and Sandilands are both resigned to Melbourne being a slow burn rather than the explosion they expected. “It got a lot of press and so they tuned in and they heard really fucked up shit we shouldn’t have been talking about,” she admits.
“And I cringe when I think, but anyway, it is what it is, it’s done. And now we have to rely on those people to re-tune in and give it a second chance.”
Henderson believes word-of-mouth will be how they find a Melbourne audience. “But, that will take time and that’s okay, you know, it’s totally fine,” she reasons. “I guess, when you’re tested, you then get taught something from that. I see that as a blessing in disguise.”
And, if word-of-mouth doesn’t work, Henderson reveals Sandilands has plans to buy a house in Melbourne and spend more time in the city.
“Melbourne like to feel like they’re just not some afterthought,” she said. “And rightly so.”
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F off back to Sydney … same with the today show especially stefanovic . Take the “Sydney Age “ with you Lisa Wilkinson and her ass hay of an husband and that piss ant that was shunted to New York , no.1 Taylor swift fan .. koziol.
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Kyle is so out of touch with his continued misogynistic views calling women all sorts of despicable names on a regular basis adding fuel to the fire in the war against women in this time of Trump’s presidency of winding back women’s rights and the Pelicot mass rape trial in France. And he still wins industry awards for this disgusting behaviour. Those handing out the awards to him need to take a good hard look at themselves too. Melbournians are too smart for his smut, degrading stunts (to both genders) and ignorant outdated views, and those in Sydney who still listen to K&J I’m guessing are poorly educated and ‘basic’ sheep who blindly hang onto his every word. Jackie doesn’t reign him in, she’s got too much on the line (bags and bags of money) and neither does the network. Being from Sydney I support Melbournes rejection of these two over paid twats.
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Can’t stand either of them , they could be giving away Gold Nuggets and I still would not give them the time of day, that Kyle , a fat nobody who was picked on in high-school has conned Sydney out of millions, goes to the character of the people who listen to him, never heard him say anything half amusing
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I’ve been listening to Jackio and Kyle for years but their smuttiness content has got so much worse especially Kyle he just doesn’t care. How is it allowed? I turn it off now. They have good personalities and rapport but have lost a lot of listeners due to the smut. You couldn’t have their show on when driving kids to school. Clean it up guys.
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Sydicated national breakfast radio doesn’t work on Commercial FM stations, it never has.
Paying them $200m was ludicrous. Trying to recoup that investment by spreading the ‘talent’ and therefore cost across markets was naive.
Heads will roll (this contract has a long time to run).
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this situation is challenging for ARN
k&j risk diluting the core product that delivers in melbourne on a wrong assumption that melb will warm to them if they tone it down.
this approach would take 3-4 years to work in melbourne, if at all, and drags k&j back into feeling more like the rest of the FM format in a key market.
likely outcome it turns a dominant #1 in a large market into a diluted #1 under more pressure in sydney, and an also ran in melbourne.
the main way ARN can recoup the investment is finding truly incremental ways to monetise the duo – which for k&j would mean more work (much more) for the same money. the contract is so long it takes k&j both to retirement so their rational motivation for any sort of meaningful change is low. so arn can only rely on their egos fueling change if the experiment continues to fail.
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I want to believe it, but it sounds like a lot of hot air. Weren’t we also promised by Kiis management that K&J would be in Melbourne across the AO in Jan? Never happened.
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Their show is pure trash and I have completely deleted KIIS from my car radio settings.
What a mistake giving them such a long contract.
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Forgetting the champagne font, this article is just promoting the damage control from Ms Henderson and her cohorts.
Humbled?
Anyone that believes this spin is either stupid or, gullible or an enabler.
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It’s not that melbourne dont want to feel like an afterthought – nobody does. It’s that culture has moved fwd (tfft) and K&J were aligned with the right place (sydney) at the right time (when ralph magazine was a thing).
They are now no longer that lucky and no amount of pretending they care, or have gone back to their roots will change that. The roots are rotten and they are still 2 cringey basic nasty little douches
well done Melbs
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Should have kept Jase and Lauren, they were popular and very relatable. I changed over to listen to them on Nova now I barely listen to Kiis even on other time slots.
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I think there’s an assumption that they failed in Melbourne because of the ‘filthy’ content.
They failed because Melbourne people don’t like loudmouths. If the 2GB megamouths came to Melbourne they’d also fall.
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I hope another year of “learning” earns even lower ratings.
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Does she think we are that stupid?
You blew it big time.
Goodbye.
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Blah blah blah….just a pair of mouthy Sydney hacks who think they can come to Melbourne and take the air waves….well done to Nova for having Jase and Lauren….
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Kylie and Jackie don’t need to be crude for Melbourne, just be themselves.
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in regional non woke vic and love the show, gives quite a laugh in the morning. Melb metro is too woke and green to and take offence to everything.
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