Triple whammy for ARN and Kyle and Jackie O

After launching their entertainment network at an Upfront two weeks ago, ARN landed with a bump yesterday, with three significant stories that will affect their organisation, and others.

The first came directly from the horse’s mouth.

In an update to the Australian Stock Exchange on its trading conditions and outlook, ARN Media Limited said they were expecting a full year EBITDA to be approximately 25%-27% below the prior year. This decline in revenue is not unique to them among media companies, with economic uncertainty and cautious advertising spend affecting many across the industry but they are uncomfortably significant and were wisely announced before the second piece of news, that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have made good on their ‘enforcement actions’ towards the Kyle and Jackie O Show for breaches of the Commercial Radio Code of Practice and complaint handling rules.

The result is that the show and its employees and participants, for five years, cannot ‘broadcast content which is highly offensive to an ordinary reasonable listener or which contains strong and explicit Sexual References.’

The full details of the proposed condition can be read here: https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2025G00618/asmade/text

The definition of sexual references reads as if even innuendo is off the table. The words in the condition that are most likely to be tested are what constitutes an ‘ordinary reasonable listener’ and ‘strong and explicit’.

Then additionally, and this will be a relief, The Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions will not prosecute Kyle and Jackie O over the segment where they shared their opinions on the Erin Patterson’s mushroom cook case and guilt. The issue here was that their chat could have been considered off-limits as the trial was still ongoing under sub judice rules, which means that it was prohibited from public discussion elsewhere.

It has been a long time since we’ve seen a trial with such rules in play. Kyle and Jackie O were not the only ones potentially at risk of prosecution here. So too were the podcast Mamamia Out Loud and a presentation by a forensic psychologist about the psychology of serial killers held at Hamer Hall in Melbourne. To use the ACMA terminology, as an ordinary reasonable listener I wouldn’t have imagined that Kyle and Jackie or Mamamia had any definitive and changing evidence within their opinions. They were just like many of the rest of us who were discussing the case around the water coolers ourselves.

There is a warning though from the news of today for other networks. Some of the outlook for ARN is the result of the campaign of the MFW that was initiated because of the comments that Kyle and Jackie and their team made that got them in trouble with the ACMA in the first place. It is proving to be a steep road to recovery, and now one with conditions, for the next five years, that they will have to adhere to or run the risk of losing their jobs and show.

The Mushroom Cook trial, and the way it captured unprecedented national attention, is also a warning to broadcasters, and podcasters, about keeping the microphone off next time when discussing a still under judicial consideration case. And for Kyle and Jackie O, keeping the microphone off for some other discussions that cannot and should not air to ensure a better FY26 for the network.

Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster.