Wade Kingsley, audio consultant and co-host of the Game Changers Radio: Melbourne Radio Wars podcast, has delivered a brutal takedown of Kyle Sandilands, accusing him of squandering his lucrative contract while ignoring the harsh realities of job losses and a major corporate restructure at Australian Radio Network (ARN).
Kingsley didn’t hold back, slamming Sandilands for not only failing to take responsibility for The Kyle and Jackie O Show’s disastrous content decisions but also for continuing to indulge in crude and controversial antics at the expense of both his colleagues and the industry.
“You ran the show off the rails”
In the latest episode, Kingsley wasted no time in delivering a sharp rebuke to Sandilands, placing the blame for the show’s struggles squarely on his shoulders.
“You are responsible for that show running off the rails last year because you decided what was smutty and what was appropriate,” Kingsley said.
He added, “And yes, you weren’t reined in, and yes, you’ve got all this free control. But that was you. You did that.”
Kingsley’s comments reflect his view that the show’s struggle to find an audience in Melbourne is directly linked to the broadcaster’s content decisions.
His provocative style, which has frequently courted controversy, has so far failed to deliver the results ARN had hoped for in Melbourne – although they did show an improvement in the most recent Survey 2 – with Kingsley alleging that Sandilands’ actions led to significant fallout.
Sandilands’ huge pay packet amid redundancies
The irony, according to Kingsley, lies in the disparity between Sandilands’ enormous pay packet and the devastating job losses sweeping through ARN.
“How are you being paid an enormous amount of money [while] people have lost their jobs and the company has substantially changed for you to go on every day and think it’s your right to just be rude and smutty and crude when all of the evidence has suggested to you last year that didn’t work?” Kingsley asked.
As ARN continues its major restructuring, including widespread redundancies, Sandilands’ paycheck stands in stark contrast to the many staff members who are being laid off.
Last week Mediaweek reported that ARN has confirmed sweeping job cuts as part of a comprehensive business overhaul, making moves to reduce costs, streamline operations, and offshoring key departments.
Yet, Sandilands, one of the most prominent and highest-paid figures at ARN, continues to enjoy the fruits of his contract, signed for a reported $200 million over ten years.
The ‘Makeup Campaign’
In Kingsley’s view, ARN is essentially trying to clean up the mess caused by Sandilands’ content decisions.
“For all the money they wasted last year, they had to do another campaign to re-educate that lapsed cume, as Duncan Campbell (ARN’S CCO) called it,” Kingsley said, referencing the network’s rebranding efforts to win back disillusioned listeners.
ARN’s marketing push has been focused on repairing the brand image, addressing the fallout from controversial content and reassuring listeners that the station had “cleaned up its act.”
But Kingsley argues that rebranding alone won’t be enough. He firmly believes that Sandilands and ARN must rethink their approach to content altogether.
“You have a responsibility to the people who work on that show, including Jackie O (Henderson, Sandilands co-host), and you have a responsibility to the rest of the people at ARN,” Kingsley said.
More bad PR amid job cuts
Kingsley didn’t shy away from addressing the growing dissatisfaction with ARN’s corporate choices.
“I think one of the things that they just seem to fail to grasp in that C-Suite is the connection between A and B,” he remarked, pointing out the apparent disconnect between the company’s major financial decisions. “So A is we’ll sign someone or two people to a $200 million 10-year contract, cool. Now we’re going to go and make some redundancies. Oh, okay, so there’s the B.”