What's New
BY RadioToday Network June 13, 2026
What's New January 14, 2025
“We’re behaving.” K & J change tack in their bid to win over Melbourne
Reporter
If you live in Melbourne, you may have noticed some new messaging around Kyle and Jackie O this month.
A fresh advertising slogan has been spotted on buses around the city: Listen now. We’re behaving.
Despite having dominated the brekky timeslot in Sydney for nearly two decades, it’s no secret the KIIS FM breakfast duo has hit the skids in Melbourne, declining to a 5.0% market share in the most recent GfK survey.
ARN’s Chief Content Officer Duncan Campbell insists Kyle & Jackie O is a great, strong show … which simply lost its way.
“We just have to get Melbourne falling in love with them, that’s all,” Campbell told us, post GfK Survey 8.
Graphic and grubby content has been the major bone of contention.
Senior Guardian Australia correspondent Sarah Martin and Guardian reporter Kate Lyons recently decided to do their own ‘deep dive’ into the show, taking it upon themselves to listen every morning for a period of two weeks.
“I guess the question we wanted to answer was, do they have the reputation they deserve?” says Sarah. “Are they as bad as people suggest they are?”
Late last year, on The Full Story podcast, Sarah and Kate revealed what they’d found:
“Perhaps there weren’t as many individual, outrageous things that we were expecting, but there was sort of this low hum of content that was fairly vulgar, fairly derogatory, a lot of content that was derisive towards women and some fairly explicit language around sex and pretty vulgar, aggressive sex acts were described in some detail as well,” says Kate.
“The baseline temperature of the show was more confronting than either of us anticipated.”
More problematic, says Kate, is that kids are listening.
“And we know that, because we get data about the percentage of 10 to 17 year olds who are listening to KIIS FM. We know that station has the highest share of 10 to 17 year olds listening of any station in Sydney.”
Kate and Sarah say that equates to roughly 200,000 children listening to KIIS in Sydney alone.
“You could make the argument, as ARN does, that this adult audience, they know Kyle and Jackie O, they know what to expect, they listen for a reason. But … it’s going to land very differently on the ears of a ten year old boy or a thirteen year old girl.”
Of the 300+ complaints about the show to the Australian Communications and Media Authority since 2019, only one resulted in enforceable action.
It pertained to comments around a segment about the Tokyo Paralympics, which were found to breach decency standards.
Sarah refers to one particular expert who likens K & J’s Melbourne ratings flop to being at a party where everyone’s already had a few drinks.
Everybody’s a bit loose. And then a sober person walks in.
“The sober person looks around and says ‘You guys aren’t even being funny. This is just sloppy.’”
Sydney, she says, has already had 20 years of ‘the frog simmering in the pot.’
Melbourne, on the other hand, has come in cold, smacked in the ears with hardcore, X-rated content right from the get go.
On the flip side, Kate says it’s clear that Kyle & Jackie O have a great rapport and know their craft. They can and do make genuinely great radio.
“I was laughing out loud listening at my desk,” says Kate. “There are moments that are properly funny.”
“There were a couple of moments that were quite moving. Really good, compelling radio, in amongst a lot of stuff which was, to my ears, awful.”
Sarah says “Maybe it (the show) is stuck in a model that was super popular when they first started, and they haven’t quite shifted with the way politics and society have shifted generally. Or maybe they’re rebelling against that.”
Since he was elected Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese has appeared on the Kyle & Jackie O Show no less than seven times.
Sarah notes the federal government has spent millions of dollars on education campaigns about respect for women – largely targeting young men – and is trying to fundamentally change the conversation around family violence, which has reached epidemic proportions in Australia.
“At the same time, you’ve got two people here who are possibly two of the most powerful and influential people in the media,” she says.
“Hasn’t someone just sat down and explained to them that perhaps being a bit more respectful about women might actually be a really powerful, positive thing to do?”
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What's New
BY Sarah Patterson June 12, 2026
Robbing Sydney to pay Melbourne? This is a $200,000,000 investment.
ARN Share price – 13th January 2025 – $0.68
ARN Share price – 12th January 2024 – $0.89
ARN Share price – 13th January 2023 – $1.20
ARN Share Price – 13th January 2022 – $2.07
Aren’t we in the media and marketing business?
Telling a market you can’t get traction in you are going to be vanilla for them implies they’re vanilla.
Absolute BS.
This is damage control coming too little, too late.
They are also planning to literally throw money at people, by pelting would be listeners with balls from a helicopter.
Gobsmaking when you think two middle aged people are behaving like two naughty teenagers.
When you consider shows such as Married at First Sight, The Block, Batchelor, and other reality BS is it any wonder they do what they do? Its rubbish radio, and broadcasting it into a place with such a strong radio culture as Melbourne, as they do with Community and Commercial radio, as well as ABC, I dont know what the programmers were thinking! It was never going to work, and to consider otherwise is a complete act of arrogance and self importance.
So Sarah Martin thinks someone should sit Jackie down and teach her how to be respectful to women?
That is a very misogynistic comment because it is so condescending.
I agree with Geoff. So they’re “behaving”
As he said, too little too late
I don’t believe 2025 will be a happy one for K & J if they are expecting improved Melbourne ratings. Although, Brisbane could prove otherwise! Their act is better suited to Sydney…Melbourne will never accept them and for KIIS’ Sydney executives to think otherwise, is financial madness. It would appear KIIS didn’t carry out any market testing or audio sampling with Melbourne’s radio listeners prior to the ‘Tacky Two’ being released on to the Melbourne market. Or if they did: took zero notice of the feedback.
Geoff Field is right. Desperate is a word that comes to mind. And it’s all their own fault. They are so damaged they will never be able to appear at a large event together without being booed off stage.
Where Kyle and Jackie O failed is they copied Howard Sterns early success of raunch and shock. The difference is Howard evolved and grew his audience. K&J have beat the 1 trick pony to death and as a Sydneysider everyone’s over it,
To quote my teenage daughter “ugh they’re so 2020′
Kyle and Jacko are losing Mrs Norman. I say face to stop losing any more listeners. I don’t think this is going to even help Sydney because Melissa is in Sydney will not like the new climate Jackie after they have been used to the old call Jackie since the day at today FM I think listeners would effect to know that 969. I’m trying to say lost Melbourne listeners listeners and will not gain a single business listener when they go into city simply lose lose lose and J pure and simple Sydney breakfast programs not good in Melbourne not in Brisbane either , sorry to say KJ. Too late for you. You cost yourselves. Any chance you’ll get a single listener changing your b Why is it not going to work? Melbourne has woken up to you. You are not meant for our city. I’m sorry I’m saying this but it’s being honest. Which unknown for my mutual honesty..
If they change to fix ratings for Melbourne don’t they risk losing Sydney ratings? Also if they don’t do well in Melbourne do they then get replaced or are they their for good ?
The ARN marketing team is failing…. have you seen new campaign of Gold (WSFM)?…. so bland…..
Kyle and Jackie O …. campaign not prepared at all for Melbourne from the beginning…
Whoever HKN is, her or she is wrong. It’s not the marketing department’s fault. It’s the smut and woeful stuff coming out of the host’s mouths.
They need to actually make an effort with Melbourne. We just see it as a Sydney show dropped into this market. Maybe if they broadcast from here and/or included some local content, maybe we might pay attention. At the same time, there are four excellent and well established breakfast shows in Melbourne and people aren’t really looking for anything new.
Yeah. Start talking about the (real) footy. Maybe buy a beach box at Portsea. Go for a run around the Tan. Even broadcast from a tram. It all helps.
@Tim Salmon…
The fault is on both sides.
Kylie is so irrelevant, cringe mature man trying to be GenZ… his “jokes” are not even funny. I’m sorry for Jackie… she has grown over the years but Kylie is dragging her down on the show… she has so many good things to say, but he always turns everything into sex, blowjobs, anal talk..
The media buyers of Australia noted that when Kyle and Jackie O were introduced to the Melb market with Byron Cooke leading in they rated ok. Went up marginally too.
Well curated segments that eased their cleaner content into an already competitive market. That was well executed.
Then they go live. All smut. Ratings went down. Go figure. Shouldn’t they have learnt from that? And I’m guessing that whoever did the content curating is no longer there??
What is it about Melbourne radio talent that can successfully deliver national radio shows? When you think about successful national prime time shows (Breakfast / Drive) over many decades, most (if not all) emanated from Melbourne – Martin Molloy, Hamish & Andy, The Cage, Get This. Hughesy & Kate managed to successfully pivot from a local Breakfast show to a national Drive show as a more recent example.
The only show I can think of that has been successful nationally and primarily from Sydney is Nova’s Drive show, but even that had always had Marty and now Joel beaming in from Melbourne. Is there a ‘Melbourne sound’ that just resonates better nationally, and no matter what K&J do, they will always be ‘so Sydney’?
PJC, I think you may be on to something. I’m guessing Sydney is so Sydney-centric and self-centred that they only basically work in their own backyard. Everyone everywhere else detests Sydney, while most in Sydney never give a thought to anywhere else. This shows in their approach to national audiences. Sydney based shows sound like they’re Sydney, whereas Melbourne based shows are aware of not sounding like they come out of Sydney, and therefore are more well received nationally.
What a load of BS. Backtracking never bodes well.
Lots of redundancies and staff burnout is happening and it’s reflective. Sorry ARN but broadening their network without testing the markets properly is costing you
ARN has sacked many good staff members from across Australia to keep these guys on air. What a pathetic company. Total mismanagement right across the board . As for the fall in share price, what Ma Sheila said ..”Tough Titties”
I don’t think this explanation of the struggle K&J are having in Melbournegives Jase Hawkins & Lauren Phillips the due they deserve.
Momentum for networking K&J was building up for years. The problem is something unexpected happened at the eleventh hour – Jase & Lauren pulled stronger ratings than the conga line of previous line-ups attempted by Kiis/Mix Melbourne over a long period.
Strong enough for Nova to take a punt that all Jase & Lauren were missing, if anything else, was one last vital ingredient – a station that truly knows what it is – Nova itself.
Now the damage is truly done.
What is KIIS?
Is it CHR with content befitting such a station?
Is it AC for Mums doing the school drop-off & pick-up?
Since it’s too late to be TT-FM in this age of Smooth it’s therefore in a three horse CHR race as effective as a new brand of cola trying to muscle in on Coke & Pepsi.
Its format options limited by having to complement, not compete with, GOLD.
Ironic K&J in the same ratings bind in Melbourne it has kept 2Day FM in.