'I’m going to spill some tea': Jack Charles on the real way the new KIIS Breakfast show began
Before the coffees and casting, Chris Brown and Jack Charles road-tested KIIS Breakfast on a rival network’s Drive slot.
Every network tells its breakfast show origin story as a strategic triumph. ARN’s version of KIIS Breakfast with Chris, Amy & Jack, launching in Sydney today, has a deliberate search, a clean break from the past and, in the words of ARN director of content, Dave Cameron, “conversations and coffees”.
Jack Charles tells it differently. In fact, his version even starts on someone else’s network.
It grew out of a winter Drive fill-in show I did with Chris Brown. We did two weeks together with Nikki Osborne,” Charles told Mediaweek.
“We [Brown] didn’t really know each other beforehand, and I remember we had a meeting the day before that show started and immediately clicked; like, we didn’t even need to really speak; something just gelled, and we just had a really great, fun fortnight together.
“He really surprised me at how great he was on radio.”
That fill-in was Nova’s national Drive show, from 30 June. So the on-air rapport ARN is now selling across Sydney’s buses, and billboards were first tested on Nova’s airwaves, with Nova paying for it.
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How Nova ended up running ARN’s pilot
Charles had spent 11 years at Nova Entertainment. He said he and Brown talked about reuniting when the fortnight ended, but the timing didn’t work.
“We had a bit of a conversation about potentially working together again at the end of those two weeks, but I was still at Nova, and he was still at Seven doing television,” he said.
“I expressed that I’d like to work with him again, and he did the same, and then the opportunity sort of presented itself from him and also through my management having spoken to Dave Cameron - and then it all sort of started from there.”
In that sequence, two presenters who wanted to work together and a manager who picked up the phone did at least some of the scouting before the casting process began.
It was also fast.
“It all happened in August of this year; it was a really quick turnaround. There was a cheeky Sunday demo session where I was flying up to Sydney under cloak and dagger to demo with Chris and Amy. I’d never met Amy, and then again, meeting her that day in the studio, as we connected straight away, and that demo just felt like a radio show.”
A demo in August, an announcement in September and on air in November. That’s the timeline for what was, until this year, the most lucrative breakfast slot in Australian commercial radio.
“It was somewhat nerve-wracking. I had been at another network for 11 years, and I was secretly doing something under the cover of night. So that was all sort of scary,” Charles said.
“When I got home after recording the demo, I didn’t really know which direction it would go, and then it sort of evolved into Chris, Amy and Jack, and then it just worked.”
The conversation in Chrissie Swan’s car
Before he could say yes to ARN, Charles had to tell Chrissie Swan he was leaving.
Charles anchors and executive produces The Chrissie Swan Show, and his time with Swan goes back further than his title. They met when he was 18, and his first full-time job was at Nova, where he worked with her.
“That was probably the toughest thing to do. But I really wanted to tell her first,” he said. “I’ve essentially grown up with her.”
He told her in the middle of a show. Charles asked Swan if they could step out of the studio to talk, onto the balcony or the office floor. She suggested her car instead.
“So we got in, and I had probably the most nerve-wracking conversation I’ve ever had with her. It felt like I was breaking up with someone,” he said.
Charles recalls that Swan took it well. She told him she was excited for him, called it an incredible opportunity, and couldn’t have been more supportive.
“She said it’s your time to soar, and told me she would never try to clip my wings.”
“But she was incredible and said I’m so excited for you; it’s an incredible opportunity. She couldn’t have been more supportive, and she said it’s your time to soar, and told me she would never try to clip my wings.”
The hole they’re stepping into
The wings will need to work hard. The Kyle and Jackie O Show aired its final episode on 3 March after months off air over alleged brand safety issues. KIIS Sydney’s breakfast share, 12.7% at the start of the year when it was the city’s No.1 FM breakfast show, sat at 6.9% in GfK Survey 6. That was flat on Survey 5 and fifth in market, behind 2GB (13.9%), smoothfm (11.8%), Nova (9.9%), and ABC Sydney (7.7%).
ARN’s HY26 results put a $38 million revenue gap on the fallout.
Of the stations ahead of KIIS, Nova is the one that is growing, up 0.8 percentage points. ARN’s breakfast rebuild depends on taking listeners from the network it has just taken its panel operator from.
Charles isn’t pretending the job is small.
“I like to put it out there plain and simple. I love Kyle and Jackie O. What they did was incredible, but things come to an end, and there has to be something new,” he said.
“And while it’s daunting for most people and sort of scary stepping into that role, I’m kind of excited by it, weirdly. Like, I think because I’m really confident that the show is going to be good.”
Just don't mention the c-word
While it might be the industry's favourite word, Charles has no patience for it.
“I hate the word chemistry because it gets overused so much in radio, but the three of us … we’re actually all mates,” he said.
On Thursday, ARN unveiled “KIISes Different”, the campaign launching both the Sydney show and Melbourne’s new KIIS Breakfast with Ash, Issie & Elliot. The press release uses “chemistry” three times. It promises close-up talent photography and a stripped-back TV “un-ad” across out-of-home, transit, television, BVOD, digital, print, social, and ARN’s owned channels.
ARN chief marketing officer Donna Gordon said the campaign was built to “spark curiosity, drive sampling and give people a reason to rediscover KIIS”.
Sampling is the easy part, and ARN can buy it. Habit is the hard part. Breakfast listeners don’t drift so much as move, and the ones who left KIIS this year have had eight months to settle in elsewhere. The first full GfK survey of the new show won’t arrive until 2027, which gives the campaign time to work. It also gives the market time to form a view before the numbers do.
Who’s driving
Both new KIIS breakfast shows, in Sydney and Melbourne, have an on-air host running the panel. In Sydney, that’s Charles. After 11 years behind the desk, he says he has a good instinct for when a segment is done, and it’s time to go to calls or traffic.
“I love being in control. I love being the one who can call when to move on,” he said. “And it kind of makes it all a bit more fun. Because the stakes are a little bit higher in terms of if you f**k it up.”
The stakes have rarely been higher. The line-up is a vet best known for television, KIIS’s weekend breakfast host, and a producer-presenter poached from the competition. Together they’re inheriting a slot that was earning on-air revenue on a scale few shows ever reach until this year.
Charles says he expected the scrutiny when he took the job.
“And without sounding cocky or arrogant, I think they will [like it],” he said. “And yes, they’re big shoes to fill.”
Sydney starts sampling from today, but GfK will give the verdict, and it is rarely as kind as Chrissie Swan.
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