Gossip Queen: Kyle Sandiland’s plan to hijack our airwaves
Shock jock Kyle Sandilands says his radio show has what it takes to be No.1 in Melbourne and has been pushing for years to be let loose on our airwaves.
Fiona Byrne
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Kyle Sandilands says he would dominate Melbourne radio if his long-held plan to network his top-rating Sydney breakfast show to Victoria finally succeed.
Sandilands revealed he had been pushing to take over the Melbourne airwaves since joining KIIS in 2014 and had no doubt his controversy-prone Kyle and Jackie O Show could hit no. 1 in the FM breakfast ratings if unleashed.
“Oh absolutely,” he said.
“Christian (O’Connell on Gold FM) would be spewing, Fifi (Box on Fox FM) would be spewing but I have always had this crazy self-belief.
“There are a lot of great radio shows in Melbourne but ours is very, very different.
“I have been trying to shoehorn ourselves into Melbourne, that is what I wanted to do, but they (KIIS FM management) still believe you have to be local. …. I would have rolled the dice.”
Sandilands, 48, who last week signed a new radio deal that could see him earning up to $8 million a year, was the star speaker at the Radio Alive 2019 conference on Friday where he was interviewed by Karl Stefanovic.
Asked what he thought of his longtime radio partner Jackie O (Henderson) when they first met Sandilands said: “I thought she was f---able.”
Just weeks after they were teamed up on-air Henderson staged an intervention on him. “In the first three weeks I was called into (their boss’s office) and Jackie was there with all the other staff and it was an intervention on me because I was screaming and swearing,” he said.
Sandilands acknowledged he had said plenty of “dumb things” on-air including his recent scandal where he offended Christian and Muslim groups with comments about the Virgin Mary.
“I have sad plenty of times dumb things and …. I can understand why some people have the s---s but I am not going to run around licking a---holes about it all day,” he said. “If it is truly something I am sorry about I have no problem saying, ‘that was horrible and I am sorry that I have offended you’, but I don’t run around saying sorry to every single thing.”
He revealed drugs, a mental disorder and casual office romances dominated his time on Perth radio in 1997.
Those hoping Kyle will retire soon, think again.
“I want to be on air until I am dead,” he said.