Trashy fight in radio wars: Kyle’s KIIS rotating ‘ride it’ rooster hits fowl note in Mill Park

From Kyle’s “cash cock” in Mill Park to Fox’s stars in the suburbs and GOLD FM’s sticker campaign, Melbourne’s radio wars have become a trashy bin fight.

The brawl for bragging rights in Melbourne’s highly competitive breakfast radio market is actually a battle for the ‘burbs.

Kyle Sandilands’ Kyle & Jackie O Show marketing machine is steamrolling the city with billboards, giveaways and crazy competitions and the KIIS bus is constantly on the road.

Fox FM’s Fifi, Fev and Nick (Fifi Box, Brendan Fevola and Nick Cody) are making their presence felt in the city’s outer ring with their Brekky In The Burbs outside broadcasts. So far this year the ‘burbs that have experienced their Fox magic include Epping, Pakenham, Sunbury and Ringwood.

The KIIS FM Cash Cock. Picture: Supplied

A fan has had a KIIS FM Cash Cock tattooed on his backside. Picture: Supplied

Meanwhile, GOLD FM’s Christian O’Connell is mobilising an army of suburban ‘bin-fluencers’ to use their trash to spruik his show.

He is urging his listeners to sticker his show on their garbage bins, so come bin night, suburbs across the city are filled with Gold branded rubbish.

KIIS FM, the home of the Kyle & Jackie O Show, and GOLD FM are owned by the Australian Radio Network. The two stations are companions under the ARN umbrella.

O’Connell has jousted with the Fifi, Fev and Nick show for the mantle of Melbourne’s number one rating FM breakfast show for the past few years.

But now O’Connell is crying poor, joking (maybe not joking) that his marketing budget has been reduced to a trickle owing to Sandilands’ charge for listeners.

“You have seen all the billboards, the posters, the giant bus, the trams, it is not going away, I’m talking about Kyle & Jackie O,” O’Connell said.

“We have no marketing money. Why? We work for the same company, it is awkward. They are trying to destroy me.”

O’Connell’s “very smelly, dirty rebel alliance army” of ‘bin-fluencers’ is growing.

Not to be outdone, Sandilands unleashed his Cash Cock on the city’s outer suburbs last week.

Pre-sunrise in a Hungry Jacks carpark in Mill Park last Monday, a large brown bucking plastic rooster waited to be tamed.

Christian O'Connell is getting listeners of his GOLD FM breakfast show to put stickers on bins. Picture: Supplied

The trashy GOLD campaign. Picture: Supplied

About 50 Kyle & Jackie O fans, some in pyjamas, some wearing chicken masks, and one dressed as a tiger, turned out to do the chicken dance as the sun rose in the hope of being picked to straddle the fowl and win money.

A couple of Kyle fans drove from Bendigo, arriving in the Mill Park fast food carpark at 10pm on Sunday night so they could be the first to join the party. Another carload of fans, keen to avoid any early traffic snarls, arrived at 2am Monday and slept in their car.

A young woman, Casey, was selected from the squawking mob to mount the chook as the remaining wannabe riders started bowing down in some weird dawn ritual before the big bird.

As she climbed on board to ride for cash, two nearby medical officers put down their Jack’s Cafe lattes and braced themselves for the inevitable — that Casey would be flung off the wildly rotating fowl.

The crowd, razzed up by ‘cockmaster’ Intern Pete, dressed like a hybrid ringmaster rooster, chanted at the top of their voices “ride that cock, ride that cock” as the bird started to spin.

Casey toppled off after a mere five seconds. Sandilands watching on a monitor from his Sydney studio roared with laughter.

KIIS FM's Cash Cock in Mill Park shocked residents. Picture: Supplied

Bewildered Mill Park residents stopped to ask what on earth was going on.

“We have never had anything like this in Mill Park before,” one said.

The KIIS circus then headed to Dandenong and Frankston North.

It is a radio listener recruitment drive by the FM stations unlike anything Melbourne has seen before — no one is safe!