Hats off to Melbourne for flushing Kyle and Jackie O down the toilet

Anyone who’s undertaken a deep dive into their local Colesworth’s international foods aisle might surface wondering at some of the options on offer. What would possess anyone to export grass tea herbal jelly in a can, for example? Is there a person in the world prepared to chance an arm on something that looks like milk, sounds like a Flower Power perennial and tastes like spleen and regret? No doubt it’s a delicacy somewhere, but without the requisite local knowledge, that bottle of fermented sludge-in-a-single-serve is destined to languish on the shelf, locked in a game of chicken with its own use-by date.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson started taking on Melbourne’s $220 million radio market earlier this year.Credit: Instagram

Speaking of weird things that should never have left the test tube, it turns out that NSW’s most recent export – The Kyle & Jackie O Show – has met a hostile reception at the Victorian border from listeners seemingly intent on being served their morning Weetbix without an accompanying mug of steaming breakfast radio bin juice.

Who’d have thought it? For Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson, who have spent years in Sydney nestled in the bosom of listener land’s boganati, feted and fellated for their cutting wit and comedic timing, the message has been delivered with all the subtlety of a very public pantsing.

The latest radio survey, released in Victoria last week, had Kyle and Jackie O occupying sixth spot in the ratings, with a cringeworthy 6.1 per cent share in Melbourne, presumably thanks to a handful of visiting hen’s parties who drank one too many pink lemonade-flavoured pre-mixers and forgot to turn the radio off at the Airbnb before hightailing it back to Sydney.

You know your limping circus animal has run out of new tricks when a ringmaster at ARN, which owns the show, is forced to dust off the contortionist’s manual and utter the following about the long-term future in Melbourne: “Building momentum in new markets requires time, and we remain confident in our long-term growth strategy.” Take a bow, ARN chief content officer Duncan Campbell, your advanced diploma in marketing blippity-blop is in the mail.

The problem for the Kyle & Jackie O Show is that despite its stars’ multi-multi-(multi-multi-)-million dollar pay deals, they’ve been serving up a steady diet of smut and schlock to the same audience for so long that they are unwilling – or possibly, unable – to change the script.

And to some extent, there’s no reason to. In Sydney, the time-honoured formula of sex sex cash giveaways sex venereal disease sex celebrity interviews transgender fetishing sex sex sex something about one of their kids sex more sex toilet gags sex has won them a legion of rusted-on fans.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended Sandilands’ second wedding last year. Henderson’s yo-yoing weight has provided rich pickings for the media’s bin chickens who have worked themselves into a lather of speculation about its extremes. (Was she comfort-eating during a faltering marriage? Does she use Ozempic? Heavens to Jenny Craig, will we ever find out?)

Not even a well-documented series of on-air brain explosions have resulted in the pair’s long-overdue expulsion from the airways. Lowlights include hooking a 14-year-old up to a lie detector to ask her about her sexual history (whereupon she revealed she’d been raped), a segment titled “naked dating”, and (lest anyone think we’re unfairly focused on historical offences), there was the interview with the 100-year-old retired flight attendant with (apparently and understandably) spotty memory, who was asked whether she’d ever joined the mile-high club. That happened this morning.

The show’s response to its flagging Victorian ratings figures has also been typically tasteful and classically understated. In a recent segment titled “dudes weeing”, five women who worked on the program recorded themselves urinating, ostensibly to determine whether it was possible for a third party to identify some or all of them based on their toileting habits. Naturally, the commentary featured a spirited discussion of menstruation, and panty liners, and vaginas because (did I say this already?) sex sex sex.

In Melbourne, where that sort of caper is still capable of generating a headline, there was a ripple of indignation, but for Sydney listeners whose ears are so full of calluses that it’s tough for any sound to get through, there wasn’t an outraged headline in sight. After all, the problem is practically someone else’s now. If you don’t like it yourself, offload it to the nearest viable market, right?

Now, someone pass me a can of grass tea herbal jelly and a bottle of fermented sludge-in-a-single-serve. Attention, Auckland. Have you heard about the Kyle & Jackie O Show yet? I promise, you’re going to love it. Sex sex sex sex sex.

Michelle Cazzulino is a Sydney writer.

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