Mad Witches target advertisers in push to ditch ‘VileKyle’ Sandilands

Controversial radio star Kyle Sandilands has become the target of an advertising boycott by the activist group Mad F---ing Witches (MFW) as The Kyle & Jackie O Show launches in Melbourne ahead of the rest of the country.

However, MFW’s claims they have convinced big-name advertisers, including Myer, AAMI, Bunnings, Samsung and Hamilton Island, to abandon the show have been denied by the companies, all of which confirmed they were unaware of the campaign.

Kyle Sandilands at home in Vaucluse.Credit: Nic Walker

A spokeswoman for parent company ARN said there was no record of advertisers pulling out over concerns regarding content. However, Sandilands said on air last week that listeners had been complaining. He did not respond to questions put by this masthead.

ARN network bosses are privately anxious about the MFW campaign and have pointed to the experiences of other broadcasters, such as Alan Jones, who was targeted in a highly publicised MFW campaign in 2019 over his remarks about former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern.

A month after its launch in Melbourne, The Kyle & Jackie O Show, with its daily fare of lascivious locker room banter, has so far been met with lukewarm ratings – a startling contrast to the show’s Sydney popularity. The next set of ratings is due on July 9 and will provide a better indication of how Melbourne audiences are responding to KIIS FM’s multimillion-dollar expansion gamble.

MFW founder Jennie Hill has Kyle Sandilands in her sights.

MFW founder and spokeswoman Jennie Hill claimed “early indications” suggested the boycott, codenamed #VileKyle, had started yielding results. She said the group’s own auditing showed fewer advertisers than when the show launched in Melbourne, but she admitted gauging its impact was difficult.

While advertisers that MFW claims have pulled out denied doing so when contacted by this masthead, they also admitted being unaware of the content Sandilands was putting to air. He is the subject of “sensitivity training” orders following offensive remarks about the Paralympics and homophobic comments about the monkeypox virus in 2022.

On Friday, the watchdog Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) confirmed there were no current investigations regarding the show. If listeners suspect a breach in the commercial radio code of practice, they must first make a complaint to the broadcaster. If no response is received in 60 days, or they are unsatisfied with the response, they can refer their complaint to ACMA to investigate.

During the show’s first breakfast broadcast beamed into Melbourne, Sandilands’ 49-year-old co-host Jackie O (real name Jaqueline Henderson) told listeners she was a single mum who had never had a sexually transmitted infection, to which Sandilands, mimicking her voice, said: “Oh I’ve kept this pussy pristine.”

Sandilands described himself as a “coke-sniffing asshole” while the show’s director Bruno Bouchet – once sacked from the show over insensitive social media comments following a US massacre and most recently named as a campaign adviser to NSW Premier Chris Minns – offered details of his “freakish” foreskin.

In subsequent shows, when asked if his second wife Tegan was pregnant, Sandilands, 53, told his audience it was a possibility “since I’ve been dolloping the baby batter in there”. Jackie O was given explicit, on-air instruction on how to “improve” her oral sex technique while Sandilands asked if his co-host’s breasts were now “like two socks full of sand” since losing weight. He also teased her about losing her virginity as a 13-year-old in a park.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson are yet to make a splash in Melbourne.

One of MFW Kyle Sandilands advertising boycott posts on social media this week.Credit: MFW/X

During a phone call to one of the show’s female producers, on leave after having a baby, Sandilands asked what she was wearing. “Have you got undies on?” he pressed before saying, apparently in jest, that she was “a four” [out of 10] and that “if you saw her, no one would think I’m trying to throw one up this kid”.

Despite their critics and constant controversies, the formula has paid handsome dividends for Sandilands and Henderson, who in 2023 each signed $10 million a year, 10-year deals with parent company ARN to take the show across Australia.

Radio bosses are hoping the pair can replicate their Sydney success, where the show’s most recent ratings figures reveal it has a daily cumulative audience (those who tuned in for at least 8 minutes) of 128,000 ten to 17-year-olds, by far the largest number of young listeners of any station in the city.

Industry sources estimate Sandilands’ show is directly responsible for around $20 million in advertising and sponsorship revenue in Sydney and millions more in online social media campaigns, while a “halo effect” means it props up the entire KIIS FM schedule throughout the day.

The competition for dollars has never been fiercer. Commercial Radio Australia figures reveal the national metropolitan radio advertising revenue dropped 4 per cent in 2023 to $673.252 million as digital audio streaming and podcasting posted a record year.

“Melbourne people are going to sample Kyle & Jackie O out of curiosity because they are so outrageous. Sure, it is a more conservative market, but to think Melbourne is so much more wholesome than Sydney is a pipe dream. Eventually, they are likely to win through,” said Steve Allen, director of strategy and research at Pearman Media.

Hill said MFW had wrangled its 150,000 social media followers to “stop Sandilands’ toxic influence from spreading beyond Sydney, we don’t want him here”.

In 2019, a social media campaign against Alan Jones involving MFW and other groups resulted in an 8 per cent drop in the number of ads on the station. The Sydney Morning Herald estimated the boycott cost $1 million over four weeks, and it was worse than the one in 2012 when Jones’ comments suggesting then-prime minister Julia Gillard’s father died of shame was estimated to have cost the network $1.5 million.

“Sydney may have become used to it, but I don’t think the rest of Australia wants what is coming out of Kyle’s mouth,” Hill said.

More than 60 brands have been named in the MFW hit list. “These companies are receiving hundreds of complaints a day over their ads in Sandilands’ show,” claimed Hill, a mother of adult children, former school teacher and driving instructor from regional Victoria.

She said MFW didn’t specifically know why an advertiser pulls out of a program “because they only rarely communicate with us to tell us. They often don’t want us aware because that sort of information would help our consumer boycott campaigns, and many people at these companies don’t even appear to know what decisions their colleagues are making.”