Kyle Sandilands backs calls for Alan Jones to return to radio

Sydney’s new breakfast radio king Kyle Sandilands confessed he still keeps his eye on Alan Jones, who stepped away from radio last year.

Sydney’s new breakfast radio king Kyle Sandilands has backed calls for veteran broadcaster Alan Jones to return to the microphone.

Celebrating his historic breakfast ratings win over 2GBs Ben Fordham, Sandilands confessed he keeps his eye on Jones, who stepped away from radio last year.

“Hideous colour palette mind you on the whole outfit,” he said of Jones’ wardrobe on Sky News Australia on Monday night. “That aside, because who am I to speak? But he still has plenty to say. I can’t help but watch him so I would love to see him back on the radio. The more the merrier, I love the whole radio industry.”

KIIS 106.5 FM hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O. Picture: Instagram

Fordham replaced Jones on 2GB breakfast in June, 2020. At the time, Jones had been the number one breakfast host for a record 226 consecutive surveys.

Sandilands and his KIIS 106.5 FM co-host Jackie O Henderson trumped Fordham as the top radio show in Sydney with a 15.5 per cent share of the breakfast market, a jump of 2.6 percentage points on the previous ratings survey.

Fordham’s show slumped 0.2 of a percentage points to a 13.3 per cent share of breakfast.

“That is ridiculous, that is two points higher than we’ve ever had in our life,” Sandilands said of the KIIS result. “Whether it is a shift or whether people have been dislodged after Alan left and are looking for a new home or whether all of a sudden people have thought, ‘maybe that guy is not a c***’, who knows? It is nice though.”

Speaking to The Australian newspaper this week, 80-year-old Jones said a return to radio wasn’t off the table.

“What the future holds, who knows,” he said.

Veteran broadcaster Alan Jones at his home in Sydney. Picture: John Feder

Kyle Sandilands. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“Am I interested in radio? I’m interested in the media, I’m interested in the prosecution of ideas, that is why I write and I broadcast on TV, but in relation to radio, who knows? It’s an open field, it’s a fertile field, if someone was interested in discussing something of that kind, I may be interested, I may not be interested. If someone wants to put a piece of paper in front of me I’ll be able to give them a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ in five days.”

Sandilands meanwhile has spent the past few weeks on holiday in far north Queensland and is due back in the KIIS FM Sydney studio on Monday. Jackie O has been busy filming The Masked Singer TV show for Channel 10.

Ben Fordham on air during his 2GB breakfast program. Picture: AAP/ Joel Carrett

It will be business as usual when they go to air early Monday morning despite the history-making survey result.

“The first thing I thought of was that I never put in to the deal an extra bonus for number one overall, that was the first thing I thought of because I am a money hungry prick,” Sandilands joked.

“It is a nice reflection of what we’ve been doing. I told my guys, I never let you celebrate when we win ever. They don’t even get a Red Rooster roll, nothing, they just keep powering on. I said when we get back I will take them down to the Harbour View Hotel, they love it down there because it is one of the only venues they haven’t been kicked out of, and I’ll put something on down there for them. This will be the one celebration I will allow.”

Sandilands and Fordham are good mates and often rib each other off air.

“I just said to him, ‘eat a dick’,” Sandilands said of speaking to Fordham since the ratings were released. “And then I laughed and said, ‘no mate, you are number one AM remember. He said he was strangely thrilled for me when he should feel bad for himself. I said, these things go up and down, it is nothing, lying obviously.”