Ex-boss reveals truth about Kyle and Jackie O

A former radio executive who worked with Kyle and Jackie O for years has revealed what he thinks of their current show.

You might not remember 1984, but I certainly do.

I was 17 and had just purchased my first car – a 1.3 litre mustard brown Ford Escort with a bonnet scoop.

Looking back now the only good thing about the car was the sound system, and nestled inside that brand new Pioneer cassette deck for the entirety of 1984 was Prince’s masterpiece Purple Rain.

This was the soundtrack for the eponymous film which launched Prince into the stratosphere of pop music icons, it also led to one of the most recognisable graphics on packaging in recent history, the Parental Advisory Label (PAL).

The PAL label was introduced more than 30 years ago.

Someone else who owned a copy of Purple Rain in 1984 was Karenna Gore, the daughter of Tipper and former US vice president Al Gore.

Somehow Tipper managed to find the time to listen to the whole album her daughter loved so much, and stumbled on track five, Darling Nikki.

The song depicted an explicit reference to a woman masturbating in a hotel lobby.

Shocked and appalled, Mrs. Gore would round up other influential Washington D.C. spouses to form the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC) and lobby for the creation of a rating system for music modelled after the Motion Picture Association’s age-based system.

40 years later, I think we might need a content warning sticker like this one for The Kyle and Jackie O Show.

I worked with Kyle and Jackie for close to 10 years.

I was program director at 2DayFM when they launched on breakfast in 2005, and was later the head of programming for the SCA radio network as Kyle and Jackie built their audience and reputations as one of the world’s great radio shows.

Seeing them up close has been the highlight of my career.

Kyle and Jackie during their 2Day FM days.

Craig Bruce.

Last week I listened to The Kyle and Jackie O Show as homework for a podcast I’m hosting (with fellow programmer, Irene Hulme) called Game Changers Radio: Melbourne Radio Wars.

In case you missed the news, Kyle and Jackie launch their breakfast show into Melbourne on April 29.

Like much of what Kyle and Jackie do, this is a polarising move.

Haters say it can’t work. Kyle is too crass. Melburnians will hate him. The show has to be local. A Sydney show can’t connect with a Melbourne audience.

Supporters see these arguments as irrelevant. The show’s content is compelling. Listeners will love it, regardless of their state of origin.

For me, this story has little to do with the nuances of Sydney versus Melbourne.

Instead, it’s about the content, and Kyle and Jackie have a very specific style of content.

It’s content that is on the very edge of acceptable broadcast standards (and some would say it is well past the edge). Not all of their content is like this - but enough of it is.

When Melbourne audiences tune in for the first time on April 29, they will hear a show that is as freewheeling and extreme in terms of language and content as anything I have seen or heard on the internet.

Yet this is not online.

It is mainstream radio broadcast first thing in the morning.

It’s actually quite shocking how far they’ve managed to push the boundaries.

Kyle and Jackie O start broadcasting on Melbourne radio on April 29.

I can’t write in this article all of what I heard on their show last week, but there were references to anal sex, Kyle’s penis, and masturbation.

The language and content was simply toe-curling.

And here’s the kicker: Sydney audiences love it!

The latest radio ratings have them ranked as the number one show in the market, and from an FM perspective, they’re miles ahead of their nearest competitor.

Clearly their Sydney audience have become habituated to the extreme nature of their content. And make no mistake: it can be extreme on occasions.

To be clear, I’m not judging whether this type of content is good or bad, right or wrong.

I still find the show to be genuinely funny at times and both of them to be as endearing and interesting as I remember them, but I was shocked by the velocity and intensity of the sexualised themes on the show.

The question is, how will Melbourne audiences react?

ARN, the parent company of Kyle and Jackie O, have set up a complaints department in preparation for the show starting on April 29.

They will be busier than Jackie’s dressmakers on Brownlow Medal night.

How will ARN combat the barrage of complaints?

An old school sticker campaign might not be a bad idea.