Kyle and Jackie O Show axed as Sandilands vows to sue
ARN has told the ASX that shock jock Kyle Sandilands’ contract has been terminated, ending the controversial Kyle and Jackie O Show after more than 20 years.
Source: AAP
Shock jock Kyle Sandilands has confirmed his radio contract has been “terminated”, but he is refusing to accept it and has released a blistering statement.
Sandilands on Wednesday morning said the tearing up of his $100 million, 10-year employment deal was “invalid” and he was handing the fight to his lawyers.
He also accused ARN Media of using his on-air fight with Jackie Henderson to engineer the end of the Kyle and Jackie O Show.
“ARN has just announced that they’ve terminated my contract. I don’t accept it,” Sandilands said.
“My lawyers told them last week this would be invalid. And guess what? It is.”
ARN Media released a statement to the ASX on Wednesday morning advising it had issued a notice of termination of contract to Sandilands and Quasar Media Services Pty Ltd.
“As a result, the Kyle and Jackie O show will no longer be presented,” ARN said.
Sandilands’ statement said he and Henderson had simply had a “blue” on air — as they had done “100 times in 25 years” — but he said ARN took that situation and “decided to try to burn the place down”.
“They sacked Jackie. They suspended me. They wouldn’t even let me pick up the phone to call her or anyone else on the show,” he said.
“Then — and this is the bit that gets me — once they’d made it impossible for the show to go on, they turn around and say, ‘You didn’t fix it. You’re fired!’.
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“I said sorry to Jackie the night of our blow-up. And when I said I was sorry to Jackie, I meant it. I still mean it. But it doesn’t mean I will stand by while I am separated from the people who’ve listened to me every morning for 25 years.
“Before they suspended me, ARN said, ‘Let us handle it”, and I listened.
“In the two weeks since, I’ve done everything ARN asked. I said, put me back on air. I’ll work with Jackie. I’ll work with someone else. Whatever you need. Every single time – ‘no’.
“They weren’t interested. They didn’t want to fix this. They thought they saw a chance to get out of the contract they signed with me a year ago, and they ran with it.”
Sandilands said ARN knew exactly what it was getting into when it signed his $100 million, 10-year deal just over two years ago.
“They knew how I work, they knew the show, and they were happy to pay for it — because I delivered No.1 ratings. Year after year. Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for their business,” he said.
“I held up my end. I always have.
“You tell me — why would ARN prefer to breach a contract and pay the legal consequences rather than honour the contract and pay me to do what I do best? That’s the bit that doesn’t make sense.
“I’ve got a contract until 2034. I’ve got rights under that contract. And ARN hasn’t honoured the contract. So, it’s over to my lawyers.”
Sandilands ended his statement by acknowledging his loyal listeners.
“To the people who tune in every morning — you lot are the reason I’ve done this for 25 years. You didn’t get a say in this. Neither did I. But my lawyers will,” he said.
“I’m not done. Not by a long way.”
‘I have options’
Earlier, Sandilands said listeners still wanted him to return to his show as a deadline passed at midnight for a decision on whether ARN Media would fire him.
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Appearing outside his Sydney house on Tuesday, Sandilands said he had not heard anything from KIIS FM parent company ARN about whether it would terminate his $100 million contract for inappropriate conduct.
“At the end of the day, I’ve got a contract with ARN and I expect them to honour that,” Sandilands said on Tuesday.
“I do have some options if they don’t.”
Asked if he would investigate buying out the media company, which has a market cap of about $106 million, Sandilands smiled and said he had “many options”.
“I still want to do the show, the listeners want me back on doing the show,” he said.
Sandilands has previously denied he breached his contract by criticising co-host Henderson on-air on February 20.
But ARN suspended the controversial host on March 3 and said he had 14 days to remedy the breach. That timeline was up on Tuesday night.
Later, in an interview with YouTuber Robert McKnight from McKnight Tonight, Sandilands said he was willing to return to the show on Wednesday “if they’re willing to put me on”.
“My world has not fallen apart. I’ve still got a contract that hasn’t changed until they advise me as such. I’m more than happy to turn up tomorrow and do the radio show,” he said.
“Although we’re not sure that’s gonna happen as we haven’t heard anything yet. Hopefully I hear by midnight and then we’ll know where we all stand.
“I want to get back to work. The listeners want me to go back to work. I’ve had many clients call me and say they want me back on there. We’ll have to see if they’re all singing from the same handbook.”
Sandilands said he was otherwise doing well.
“Even my best mate, Johnny Ibrahim, called me today and said, ‘How are you?’, and I said, ‘Mate I’m fine’. And he said, ‘No, how’s your mental health?’, and I started laughing. I said, ‘My mental health is fine’,” he said.
“Even my wife said to me, ‘You’re remarkable, the way you’re handling this’ and I said, ‘Look, laying down in the corner and crying is not the way I normally do things’. I’ve had way worse things than this to handle. I was a homeless teenager. I’ve dealt with much tougher things. I just compartmentalise it.”
The friction between Sandilands and Henderson happened during a live broadcast in late February when he criticised her after she looked into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s horoscope.
“You’re off with the fairies … every segment, every time you’ve spoken, you don’t even know what’s going on,” Sandilands said in his rant.
“You’re not doing the rest of the job and everyone in this building has mentioned it to me.”
On March 3, ARN told the ASX that Henderson gave notice she could no longer work with her co-host and it considered Sandilands’ comments a breach of his agreement with the company.
The Sydney ratings darlings are in the second year of a decade-long, $200 million contract that coincided with a poorly received entry into the Melbourne radio market.
On Monday, the now-dormant show was hit with new licence terms should it return to the air. Repeated decency breaches prompted the media regulator to order ARN to ensure no offensive or explicit sexual content went to air.
-with AAP
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