Kyle Sandilands’ text to Ben Fordham on-air after winning radio ratings

Kyle and Jackie O were controversially “dumped” off-air during an interview with Alan Jones - now, the shock jock has revealed why.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson have defeated Ben Fordham to top Sydney’s latest round of breakfast radio ratings.

The KIIS co-hosts knocked the dominant 2GB host off the number one spot in Tuesday’s GfK ratings, increasing their total audience share to 14.9 per cent – up 2.1 percentage points.

Meanwhile Fordham, who took over as host from Alan Jones in 2020, fell just behind with 14.8 per cent total audience share – down 2.1 per cent.

With 2GB having had a stranglehold on the title of ‘Sydney’s top-rating breakfast show’ for more than 15 years, Kyle and Jackie’s rare win is an impressive feat for the long-running duo.

Speaking to news.com.au, the 51-year-old shock jock said he couldn’t help but rub salt in Fordham’s wound after hearing the news.

“I sent him a text saying ‘Sorry Ben … x’, and he wrote back, ‘How did you go?’, because obviously I know everything in radio, he’s only new,” Sandilands joked.

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Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson have taken out the title of Sydney’s top breakfast show.

He added: “So I said, ‘We beat you by a little bit. By an ants d*ck. And he wrote nothing back. I told him in the middle of his show. [But] I did it very nicely, I didn’t gloat and carry on. Just placed it in front of him.”

It’s certainly been a huge year for Kyle and Jackie, who were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Australian Commercial Radio Awards last month.

They’ve also been making headlines a lot over the past few weeks, more recently, for airing their frustrations at their bosses after being “dumped” off-air during an interview with Alan Jones.

Kyle never revealed what he said to trigger the duo being pulled from air – until now.

“Alan was like, ‘You’ve been in the papers a lot [lately] haven’t you Kyle?’ and everyone freaked out,” he told news.com.au.

“They thought he [Kyle] was going to go on [a rant] and he wasn’t,” Jackie added.

Despite the incident, which even pushed Kyle to engage his lawyers at the time, the pair said morale in the office was “good”.

“[But] everyone needs to understand that Jackie and I own this show... They contract us to execute our show that we own,” he said.

“We’re happy with ARN, we love them, they love us, and every now and then there’s a miscommunication and that’s all that was.”

Kyle revealed why he was dumped off-air recently.

Jackie said Kyle didn’t say anything to warrant being dumped.

Kyle’s frequent tantrums make him the subject of regular tabloid fodder, which a large section of the internet thinks is really a ploy for ratings.

But Kyle and Jackie vehemently refuted suggestions they plot publicity stunts.

“I would be embarrassed if that’s the kind of radio we were doing. If we were doing radio where Kyle was having a tantrum for publicity … That’s embarrassing,” Jackie said.

“I know those people will forever believe it’s all a set up.”

Kyle added: “They’re f**king idiots, those people.”

Elsewhere in the survey, The Kyle & Jackie O Show also scored the highest number of listeners ever recorded for any Aussie radio show ever, with 818,000 listeners, up 80,000 from the previous survey in September.

Jackie and Kyle were inducted into the ACRAS Hall of Fame. Picture: Supplied

And the pair aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, with no plans to retire despite having spent 22 years in the hot seat together.

“[Retirement] will be the day I die,” Kyle said.

“We already know Jackie is going to stay on air crying and wearing black for the rest of her life. And then there’ll be 15 years of re-runs. Just like a Friends cast member.”