Kyle’s New app‑based Breakfast Show

Kyle Sandilands’ manager Bruno Bouchet has outlined some of what listeners can expect from Kyle’s new show, which is expected to launch on August 10. It will be available as audio and video on smartphones and connected tvs.

Bruno told Craig Bruce and Irene Hulme on the Game Changers Radio podcast that the show will be a four‑hour, live, uncensored, ad‑free breakfast show on a proprietary app that is now in development. Listeners will be able to subscribe for an annual fee of $99.

Bruno is comfortable calling it “a radio show,” but not in the conventional sense. It will be “a live breakfast show on Kyle’s very own platform,” where audiences get both audio and video. Video calls will replace traditional audio talkback. Bouchet expects “a fair bit of fun” from that level of listener interaction.

Ahead of launch, a four‑episode miniseries titled At Home with Kyle, will roll out. Bruno explained that the first episode will land “in about a week and a bit.” It will be accompanied by social media promotion.

Bouchet described the back‑end work in one word: “terrifying.”

He said that each day starts with a list of tasks, but every job completed reveals more that still needs doing. He often finds himself home at midnight feeling he “hasn’t achieved anything.”

 “I need someone more skilled, more knowledgeable, and more experienced than I am,” said Bruno. Rather than “me buying a video camera and a tripod… all right, trial, let it rip,” he has brought in “really good people” to build the platform.

The show will be uncensored, because it is no longer on the broadcast airwaves, but Bouchet gave some insight into how that will be managed on air. Kyle is “always going to be the more outrageous one” and the rest of the team will be more controlled, because, if the other team members “start swearing and matching Kyle with that outlandishness, Kyle has to go further, right! And that’s dangerous.” By keeping the team members from “vying for the crown of the outrageousness,” they avoid forcing Kyle into extremes.

Kyle’s app platform will have versions for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Roku and Samsung TV. Visually, he said, it will look “a little bit like… Netflix, but with a live component,” where a live show is clearly flagged. When a show is live, users can either join in real time or “join it from the start,” with rewind available.

Listeners can call in as video callers through the app.

Asked how confident he is on a scale of one to ten that the platform can handle scenarios like 20,000 sign‑ups on day one, Bouchet said the platform itself is “pretty solid,” because he has “had nothing to do with it” and it has been outsourced “to very intelligent” people.  

Music remains part of the evolving plan for the show, with “a ute full of cash” being paid to the artists through APRA for proper music licencing.

Asked whether this is a world first or if similar projects exist, Bouchet said he hasn’t seen anything quite like it, but compared it to Howard Stern’s “Howard 360” platform on the SiriusXM app.

Listeners will still be able to treat it “like a radio show” when they’re doing something else. Those “out walking and want to be hands free” can have the show playing as audio only with the phone in standby, the screen off, or in picture‑in‑picture, continuing to use the device while the show runs in the background.

Kyle will be accompanied by a newsreader who is “a fantastic female talent,” whose chemistry with Kyle is “off the charts.” He expects the first show will introduce her and the team. The main topic for discussion on the first show will be “everything that’s happened since February 20,” then the team will lean into making the show “as crazy and outrageous as possible.”

How’s the show planning going?  Bouchet explained they have a whiteboard in Kyle’s office marked for each hour. For the previous two weeks “it’s been blank,” despite daily meetings to fill it out. He admitted that they haven’t “figured it all out” and agreed that four hours without commercial breaks, traffic, songs and news “where you can collect your thoughts and reset”  is “a phenomenal amount of time to have to fill with content.”

On whether the female newsreader will be a co‑host, Bouchet said they “are not really going to go with the title of cohost.” Instead, they are “going back to the Howard Stern model of the cast around Kyle.” He confirmed she does have a profile, “especially in media circles.”

To promote the show, Kyle has partnered with Joshua Fox and Pedro Vitola’s AIIMS agency to manage the social side, with Bruno describing their work as “world class” and “elite.” There will also be an advertising campaign, and “of course, we’re going to have Kyle be front and centre when it comes to PR and marketing, et cetera.”

Reflecting on the last four months, Bouchet said Kyle went through “everything” – anger, confusion, sadness – but “kept it together very well.” Kyle gravitated to “facts” and enjoyed talking to lawyers because they are “very matter of fact.” At times he grew bored and restless, which is why outside court he would ask if anyone else had questions: “I’ve got time to kill.”

Bouchet believes Kyle has changed through the process, becoming a “more… three‑dimensional personality.” Where he may previously have been seen only as “larger than life” and “nasty and shocking,” Kyle has now gone through “a nightmare” where “his whole world got up‑ended and he had to figure it out, push through and accept certain things.”

Image: Kyle Sandilands Instagram