Controversial radio host Kyle Sandilands wants to bring top-rating show to Melbourne

Sydney radio host Kyle Sandilands has revealed he’s “gunning” to bring his top-rating breakfast show down south. But not everyone is on board with the idea.

Controversial shock jock Kyle Sandilands is “gunning” to bring his top-rating breakfast radio show to Melbourne.

“Why would you have the biggest radio show of all-time — ever — but only do it in Sydney?” Sandilands told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“My bosses say people love it local, but they’ve got no f---ing idea. That is such a 1970s mentality.

“If I was in charge, I’d put the biggest product they’ve got on air nationally.”

In a candid and wide-ranging interview, Sandilands, who is also a judge on Channel 7’s Australian Idol revealed:

■ He will love and accept his son, Otto, if he’s gay;

■ Money no longer matters after becoming rich beyond his wildest dreams;

■ He gloated to former Australian Idol judges Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson and Mark Holden about doing the new season without them;

■ How his divorce from pop singer Tamara Jaber informs his parenting; and

■ Plans to join the breakfast radio battle in Melbourne.

Kyle Sandilands has revealed he’s hoping to bring hit radio show, Kyle and Jackie O, to Melbourne.

According to survey figures released late last year, the Kyle and Jackie O Show, which airs on KIIS FM, attracted 817,000 listeners.

The station’s owner, ARN, said it’s the highest number of listeners ever recorded for any Australian radio show in history.

However, there have been high profile controversies, including a 14-year-old girl who tearfully revealed during an on-air lie detector stunt that she’d been raped as a 12-year-old. Kyle was also reprimanded, and apologised, after saying Magda Szubanski would lose weight if she spent time in a “concentration camp”.

Kyle Sandilands and radio co-host, Jackie O.

The Kyle and Jackie O Show was inducted into the Commercial Radio Hall of Fame last year.

Sandilands rejected notions his show is “too Sydney” for Melbourne audiences. He said their digital radio and podcast numbers are strong in Victoria.

“No-one really cares where you are. It’s an archaic way of thinking,” Sandilands said.

“I don’t get upset the (Channel 10 news show) The Project is filmed in Melbourne. You like what you like. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.”

Sandilands said he would have moved into the Melbourne market already, but his good friend Jason Hawkins helms the KIIS FM breakfast show in the Victorian capital.

“If he ever left, I would make actual threats, ‘If we’re not put into Melbourne, we might vanish somewhere else’. I’m gunning for it,” Sandilands said.

Kyle Sandilands and Tegan Kynaston at their baby gender reveal on the harbour. Picture: Instagram

Kyle and Tegan’s engagement. Source: Instagram

Sandilands, and his fiancee Tegan Kynaston welcomed their first child, Otto, last August.

“He’s six months old and teething. He’s always smiling, he’s calm and quiet, and he sleeps really well. So far, so good,” Sandilands said.

“I’m so delighted. He lights up every time I walk into the room and it really melts my heart.”

Kyle added: “I want him to grow up knowing he can be anything he wants to be. I’m not really into sport, so I don’t care if he goes down the gay road. To be honest, I’d prefer to watch him dance. I want him to be happy and safe and loved.”

Sandilands, 51, is glad he waited to start a family. He was married to pop singer Tamara Jaber for two years. They split in 2010.

Kyle Sandilands at the birth of his first child Otto with fiancee Tegan Kynaston.

Kyle Sandilands and baby Otto.

“I didn’t want to get divorced,” he said.

“There was no big drama between Tamara and I. But she was young, and I was so focused on my career. When the passion and romance died, we went our separate ways.”

Sandilands, whose parents divorced, said he would not want to raise Otto in an unhappy home.

“If you’re with someone, and you’re not happy, why share that misery with a child?” Sandilands said.

“It took me a while to have a baby because I wanted he or she to grow up in a safe, happy environment.”

Sandilands says it’s a happy-ish family on Australian Idol, where he co-judges with singers Amy Shark, Meghan Trainor and Harry Connick Jr. He gets on well with Shark and Trainor, but there’s a definite disconnect with Harry.

“I don’t know if Harry likes my personality type, which is fine,” Sandilands said.

“We don’t have to be kissing each others arses to have a good judging panel. I’m not sniffing around his dressing room door hoping to get noticed.”

Sandilands on The Masked Singer. Picture: Instagram

He was thrilled to sit alongside Australian Idol OG Marcia Hines, who returned to the show last week as a guest judge. However, former judges Mark Holden and Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson have been seemingly snubbed.

“I like Dicko, but I did ask (the show’s producers) if he’d be back. Apparently, they did some research, and no-one cared about Dicko and Mark,” Sandilands said, laughing.

“I was surprised. I rang Mark and told him, ‘Nobody cares about you.’ He found it hard to believe.”

Kyle Sandilands used to find it unfathomable that he went from a broken home, to a few years living on the streets, to being a media mogul.

His company, King Kyle, is reportedly worth $100 million.

“That’s my value,” he corrects, without a hint of arrogance.

“We did a $50 million radio deal, there’s TV deals, and I own alcohol companies, and all sorts of things. I get $10 million a year, just for radio.”

Sandilands has graced our screens on a number of different shows, including Trial by Kyle on 10 play.

At what point does money not matter anymore?

“Right now,” Sandilands replies.

“I still want to get paid for doing my job, but I used to be way more driven by money. I could stop doing TV and radio now, and live a happy life. But I love this, and I’ll die taking my last breath on the radio.”

That said, Sandilands said he will always be slightly haunted by the past.

“I’m driven by the fact I don’t want to live in a cardboard box behind the supermarket again,” he says.

“I don’t think about it much, but it’s part of my DNA. It’s in there. Once you’ve lived that s--- life, you try to avoid going back there at all costs.”