When ARN took to the stage for its 2026 Upfronts (it’s first ever) much of the industry expected fireworks – namely, a full-scale national rollout for The Kyle & Jackie O Show.
Instead, what they got was something closer to a flicker: the Sydney breakfast juggernaut will launch only in Perth via DAB+, while Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide keep local programming.
That’s despite the network’s record-breaking $200 million, 10-year deal with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, a move once pitched as the start of a national empire.
And yet…
KIIS Chief Audience and Content Officer Lauren Joyce repeated her familiar line at the upfronts, signalling no real shift in strategy. Speaking to Mediaweek, she said: “In Perth, Kyle and Jackie O will launch in the market on the DAB+ station. Are we planning to take the show into other markets at this point? No.”
“This was supposed to be the big bet”
For Wade Kingsley, founder of The Ideas Business, long-time radio strategist, and host of The Game Changers podcast, the decision feels like a U-turn.
“Well, the thing that’s hard to reconcile – if you’re at ARN or an ARN client – is that only 12 months ago we were told this would be the big bet, the national breakfast show,” he said.
“It wasn’t just about Melbourne; they wanted bigger.”
Kingsley continued: “Melbourne was simply the first available spot because they’d shunted the former Breakfast show featuring Jase & Lauren, but the idea was always that this would become a national show. So that was the plan, and here we are nine months into a 10-year contract – and the clock is ticking.”
“A missed opportunity in Brisbane”
The decision not to pull the trigger and network the show from Brisbane left Kingsley particularly baffled.
“That’s a missed opportunity. Both Kyle and Jackie are from Queensland – their content arguably fits a Queensland audience better. It’s looser, less buttoned-up. So it doesn’t make sense to have a solo breakfast show there when they could put Kyle and Jackie O in.”
The network instead chose to slot the pair into Perth via its DAB+ network.
But when after all the hype, investment and Upfront fanfare ARN chooses to debut Kyle and Jackie O digitally in Perth, Kingsley said “it’s hard not to see it as a letdown”.
“Shareholders were sold a national takeover and instead got a DAB+ side hustle,” he added.
“What about the people who lost their jobs?”
Kingsley also raised concerns about the human cost behind the strategy, noting that many roles were cut to make way for the duo’s mammoth deal.
Around 240 staff were let go from the business across 2024-25, as part of a transformation program due to a revenue decline
“We were told that all the jobs that were lost were because this would be a national Breakfast show,” he said.
“When will the show be ready? Don’t shareholders, the media, and especially those people that lost their jobs, deserve to know whether the rollout is happening in six months or a year?”
He added that the lack of transparency has left both former staff and advertisers in limbo.
“If you’re going to make those kinds of structural changes and sell the dream of a national show, you have to deliver on it. Otherwise, people will rightly start asking – was it worth it?”
Wade Kingsley,
“Raises more questions than answers”
KIIS 101.1’s Melbourne ratings haven’t helped the case for rapid expansion.
The station’s breakfast share slipped from 6.1% to 6.0% in the last radio ratings, leaving them sitting well behind the city’s FM leader, KIIS’ sister station Gold 104.3, at 10.9%.
Despite modest gains in later surveys, Sandilands himself called the Melbourne launch “a disaster”.
Kingsley argues the results are a consequence of half-measures: “If the plan was to go national, then they should have rolled out nationally from the start. Hamish & Andy did. Martin & Molloy did. You can’t run two strategies at once. Melbourne was treated like an add-on, not a fully-fledged market. They’re basically running a Sydney breakfast show into Melbourne.”
And as for Perth’s digital-only debut, he’s sceptical: “DAB+ is fine in theory, but it’s meaningless without marketing. Unless ARN invests to tell Perth listeners they can find Kyle and Jackie O on DAB, the audience won’t come. I’d bet they won’t spend a dollar promoting it.”
The $200 million question, he adds, remains unanswered: “What justifies a decade-long deal – the biggest in Australian media – if it’s restricted to two markets and a digital simulcast elsewhere? What does ‘ready’ even mean? The show hasn’t changed in 20 years. The strategy’s right – but the execution’s poor.”