Kyle Sandilands reveals how his and Jackie O’s $200m mega radio deal happened

It’s the deal that has transformed the Australian media scene and Kyle Sandilands has exclusively revealed how the 10-year $200m mega deal was done.

It was the deal one year in the making. KIIS FM’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O made history this week, penning the biggest entertainment deal in Australia – in any medium – with a base salary of $200 million over 10 years, with share options and incentives – but they don’t have time to celebrate.

If they celebrated every win, Kyle would be ‘off his head’ constantly – and the shock jock doesn’t have time for that anymore – he’s a father now, after all.

“I’m not the celebrating type – even when we win the surveys, we don’t really go out and celebrate,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

“If we did that I’d be fucking off my head all the time.

“If I celebrated every little win, it’d be too much – and I’m a dad now, so my celebration is ‘oh god, he’s asleep at 730, thank god’.

KIIS FM radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson have signed a $200m radio deal.

“But I am really happy – I don’t often take time to actually reflect, because I’ve got that weird bulldozer ‘I’m going to lose it all’ mentality from when I was a kid – but it’s all very good.

“Now we’ve just got to do it every day.”

For the pair, who have already been on air together for 23 years, that’s the easy part. They love working, and with their brother, sister relationship, they know what each other are thinking, without having to say it. But what does their show look, another decade on?

Kyle will be 62 with 11-year-old son Otto on his way to finishing primary school. Jackie will be two years from 60, with daughter Kitty 22 – she would have finished school, may be at uni, possibly seeing the world. Between then and now, that’s a lot of life to cover – the exact thing that keeps audiences tuning in, if you ask Kyle.

“I just said to Jac the other day – ‘gee, how we’ve changed – 12 years ago I was single and dating 20-year-old models and you were a mum in the suburbs’ … I said, ‘and now you’re dating 20 year-old-models, and I’m a dad in the suburbs – what the f**k is going on?’

“The good thing about us is – a lot of people in these multi personality shows, they are told to play a role – ‘you will take this angle, and you will take that angle’ – and we just never really did that.

Kyle with his son Otto.

Jackie O with her daughter, Kitty. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

“It’s much easier to just be yourself than play a role or take a position on something.

“So a lot of the real rules of radio – we broke – because they were rules from the 70s and we’ve all grown, we’ve all evolved – we all speak differently, we all have different opinions, and the more different diverse voices we can get on … we’ve had truck drivers – the roughest of rough, homophobic types, on the phone crying, saying they’re ashamed of themselves the way they used to think about gay men.

“They hated them for no reason.

“And then hearing your Brooklyns, or even your Jeffs, back in the old days – they realised – and this was back when being gay was ‘oh so scary’ – so we’ve been through a lot of different evolutions of society and I think we just reflect our actual lives.

“It’s almost like a reality show on the radio.

“We’ll all grow old and die together,” he laughed.

“I never thought about it like that, but it’s true,” Jackie agreed.

“They’ve followed the journey and grown up with us – 23 years is a very long time to live out your day to day life on air.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have been on air for 23 years.

“I guess in a sense, it is very much like a reality show, because all we do talk about is our lives – so they pretty much know 90 per cent of it, so they’re invested, in a way.

“It’s funny, because I always look at people like the Kardashians and think, how did they do that? Not even realising, I’m doing it too.”

Since launching KIIS 1065 in 2014, The Kyle & Jackie O Show has cemented its position as

Australia’s most successful radio show ever. Its audience share reached an impressive peak of

17.9 per cent in June, accompanied by a record cumulative audience of 921,000 listeners, marking a milestone unmatched by any other show. All reasons Kyle has shut down people like Neil Mitchell and Steve Price who have said Melbournites won’t accept the controversial couple.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Sandilands said of the deal.

“Every couple of years we do a deal – sometimes a three year, the last deal we did was a five year deal … I knew this time around, we wanted to try and make it as long as possible, and I’ve always wanted this show to go into other markets, which we’ve been able to do with his iHeartRadio platform.

“People can find us pretty much anywhere on Earth, and the Melbourne audience grew and grew and grew on that iHeart platform and the podcasts that we have do very well, and that’s mainly from other states that don’t get us.

Kyle and Jackie O is Australia’s most successful radio show ever.

“So I just started to point out to the powers that hey, our footprint extends beyond Sydney. “And some of the other local people in Melbourne, the presenters are like, ‘well, you should broadcast where you’re from’ – but if we had that mentality, Joe Rogan’s podcast wouldn’t be so big worldwide.

“I think the world’s a lot smaller place now, and people can get their entertainment wherever they want – streaming services, free to air TV, radio, podcasts, music – people find what they want and I’ve been telling my management here – good is good.

“If you’re good, you’re not bad in Melbourne and good in Adelaide – good is good, and people will come and we already have an audience there.

“It’s not as if we’re foreign to Melbourne – we’ve been in the afternoons there for an hour for years and years and years – and Jackie even pointed out when we were last in Melbourne, that was our that was our most successful market.

“So I think there’s just a lot of poo-poo-ers out there, muddying the waters … and those people sound foolish because they know (our show) is multi dimensional – a lot of different types of voices, personalities, genders – we try and reflect what society is.

“It’s not just me and Jackie talking shit.

“We do touch on big subjects, but we do it in a normal way – rather than one guy on an AM radio station preaching his way – we’d like to openly discuss things.

Kyle and Jackie O in the studio doing their thing.

“And I’ve often had my own mind changed, on many different subjects over the years.

“I think that’s why the show is successful and it’s grown and grown and grown.

“People in Melbourne – they’re not pearl clutching, wine sipping horror types – they’ve normal people like everyone else – so to me, it’s always quite amusing to watch the different so called radio experts give their analysis – because I’m pretty sure last time a radio expert gave their analysis on us moving to KIIS FM, they were like, ‘oh, they’d be lucky to take 10 per cent of the audience – and we all know what happened there.

“Everyone came – because it’s not that hard to hit one button or the other.”

Jackie agreed, saying it showed thinking that was out of touch.

“I mean, the way they’re talking, it’s like they think Melbourne people are completely different species to Sydney people – it’s ridiculous,” she said.

“I think with any new breakfast show, it takes time and but we have a large audience listening in Melbourne – whenever I go to Melbourne, I have a lot of people come up and say they listen on the on the iHeartRadio app.

“I just don’t understand why they think Melbourne people must be so different that they would just completely shun the idea of the show altogether.

“I also do think that back in the day, when we started radio, it was very much about having a local show and traffic updates and weather updates and reflecting suburbs – and that’s true to a degree, but my God, we’ve changed so much in that time.

Kyle and Tegan Kynaston at their wedding in April this year. Picture: Supplied

“The content at the end of the day, is what wins ratings, because everything else you can get at the touch of a button.

“You can get your weather, you can you can get your music on Spotify – that stuff is readily available.

“The only reason people are listening to radio now is so the content, and I feel that’s what we do really well.

“That old school mentality of ‘radio must be about weather, traffic and local news – is just not relevant anymore, so people saying that stuff, they’re living in the past.”

Sandilands spoke to The Sunday Telegraph on his way to the kinesiologist for his sore shoulder – a small curse among far too many highs that come with having to keep up with a busy one-year-old at the age of 52.

“I think I just left my run a bit late to be a father,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have had this problem in my 20s – but now I’m lifting, carrying, bending, dancing … he’s very lovely – just a nice natured kid.”

He hit back at 2GB’s Ben Fordham who last week told this paper that Sandilands exaggerated what he was paid, saying he was a ‘facts man’.

Kyle Sandilands responded to Ben Fordham’s (pictured) comments. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“I actually sent him a note – I said ‘bro, just because you signed up for fucking chicken food doesn’t mean the rest of us are that dumb’,” he laughed.

“I like facts – so yes the money is right, and then there are share options on top and then there are incentive bonuses – so the better we do, the better.

“I don’t want to take anyone for a ride, if we don’t do well then we shouldn’t be rewarded. “But the money is there, and then there’s those other benefits there.

“The fact is I’ve always really liked working, even when I was a landscape gardener at 15, I actually enjoy it.

“See I’m not very social, so even if I have a party in my own house, I might make an appearance for 10 minutes.

“It’s weird, but that’s me.”

Like Sandilands, his on air partner hasn’t celebrated their big win yet either.

“It’s hard to process at the time because so much is going on – but of course, I just am really proud of the career I’ve had, and to be able to do another 10 years when we’ve already done 23 years is unbelievable – it’s really unbelievable – and I really mean that,” she said.

Jackie O said she can’t believe her good fortune that she gets to do another 10 years of the radio show with Kyle Sandilands. Source: Instagram

“I do think how did I get so lucky in this life, to be doing the job that I’m doing and love it so much.

“When Kyle and I originally decided that we wanted to do 10 years, I mean, I felt like it was a big ask because it’s a long time for someone to kind of, you know, put that much faith and trust in you – anything can happen in 10 years.

“You don’t really think about that stuff until you sign a 10 year contract and you think ‘wait, where will I be in 10 years? and you really start to visualise those things and how old you’re going to be and how different life will be.

“I was thinking about that yesterday – I thought, what will my life be like in 10 years?

“I guess that’s the beauty, is not knowing.

“But when I look back on the last 10 years – and we’ve been at KIIS for 10 years – and my life was completely different when I started there, to what it is now.

“So that will be that will be the nice part – seeing how it unfolds.”

HOW THE DEAL WAS DONE

Sandilands said no one had yet asked how the actual deal was brokered – so here goes.

“I’ve always found that very odd, as someone who asks people questions for a living – no one has asked, how does this actually happen?” he said.

“So I’m usually the initiator of everything.

“And I’ll sit with Bruno my manager, and he runs all my companies – so it’s not as if he’s an agent with 70 other clients, we work together daily on multiple different companies that I own.

“And he’s like, ‘okay, well, this is coming up, what do you want?’

“And we always do the magic wand.

“If I had a magic wand, what would I want – that’s always where I start – the most desired part. “And I was like, what I hate the most is having to do this every three or five years – I’d rather do it for 10 years.

Kyle Sandilands will be in his 60s and Jackie O her late 50s by the time the next radio deal finishes.

“And then what do we want – different markets and other opportunities and how do we grow the podcast – you’ve got to keep on top of these things, you can’t rest on your laurels.

“And Bruno and I, we just have very similar radio brains – and every decade someone will say ‘oh, TV’s here, radio’s finished’ – ‘oh the iPod's here, radio’s finished’ – and it just seems to always be there.

“And even young whispers, they’re still growing – it’s just gonna be one of those things that’s always around – we will always be here.

“So I’m like, we you need to be more than just a radio show.

“I believe podcasting, TV, radio will all become one thing in the very near future, which is an audio visual entertainment medium that you will get from somewhere.

“So, it’ll all be the same, really.

“You’ll be looking at it, watching it, listening to it, getting involved in it live – so we’ve formulated the whole concept around that – so where do I see this medium going? What do we want to be, and how long do we want to be doing?

Kyle Sandilands’ manager Bruno Bouchet.

“So that’s where it starts – then we get my lawyer involved – he’s an entertainment lawyer from Melbourne, and he always laughs – tells me I’m his favourite client, because he said normally people are sitting there going, what do you think we can get out of them? And he said, ‘you’re my only client that goes, ‘I’ve structured everything and the reasons why, the values of everything, the difference of share pricing on things’ … I don’t just have a dream, Bruno and I really thrash it out.

“And then the lawyer runs off and looks out Bruno and I’s due diligence and then comes back and says, ‘you know what, this will be the biggest entertainment deal ever done in Australia, on any platform – but the mathematics makes sense’.”

But the 10-year courtship with KIIS wasn’t their only option. He said it had always been ‘pretty good’ working with ARN, albeit a ‘little prickly here and there’ when they don’t agree on things, but they always seem to ‘wade through it with ease’.

“And you know you’re onto something good because we had multiple offers from different places – different radio networks, streaming platforms – there was a lot of different people with their hat in the ring, so to speak,” he said.

“Other people in Sydney, with notoriety, with a lot of money, wanting to set up your own platform – we had a lot of different options.

“But we are radio people.

“I’m happy to glue a streaming service onto what we do, but first and foremost, we’re radio through and through, and that’s what we do.

“And then I speak to Jackie, and she starts laughing, because I said, ‘tell me what you want’ – and then she said exactly what I was thinking.

“We often do – she said ‘I want 10 years and we need more money, don’t we?’ and I said ‘yep, we do’ – so we often think the same thing and don’t even really need to verbally communicate – like you know what your brother’s thinking or what your sister’s thinking – that’s the relationship.

“And then she gets her folks involved and we go from there.

“And then the slow process of lawyers and blah, blah, blah’.

“It took a year from when we were first fantasising to the signing of the deal.”

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