What $200 mil can’t buy

It’s hard for the vast majority of us to wrap our heads around what it’s like to be paid ten million bucks a year.

Waterfront mansions. Private jets. A fleet of Bentley Turbos. All these things and more can be yours when you’re on the kind of dosh Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson are on.

But Henderson says she has never been driven by the mighty dollar, and would walk away from the ten year, $200 million ARN contract the KIIS duo signed the minute things didn’t feel right.

Perhaps that time has arrived.

Is the 200 million dollar bubble about to burst?

No matter how much cashola you have or how fat your contract, there’s an old saying that’s cornier than a bowl of Doritos, but still rings true: Money can’t buy happiness.

To be fair, if you are going to be unhappy, some of us would rather be unhappy cruising around on a yacht in the Greek Islands, rather than stressing out about how to pay the rent, fill up the car and put food on the table.

But I guess it all boils down to your definition of happiness.

As Kyle previously shared with Mamamia, the thought of flying economy on his honeymoon made him unhappy enough that he paid for two private planes to fly him and his family from Paris to Saint-Tropez and from Saint-Tropez to Barcelona.

A classic case of: anyone who says money doesn’t buy happiness has clearly never been rich.

Although this is the same Kyle who admitted to being rocked to his foundations by the diagnosis of a brain aneurysm. And in the great lottery that is life, money certainly doesn’t guarantee your health.

Add to that list – as The Beatles so famously proclaimed – money can’t buy you love.

It also can’t buy you the genuine support of a friend, the loyalty of family or the adoration of a child.

The things that enrich our lives the most, you can’t put a price tag on.

In radio terms, money can’t buy the natural chemistry and friendship that Kyle and Jackie O have built in bucketloads over their decades on air together.

Have they allowed the trappings of their success to alter the dynamic?

Of course they have. Because the kind of money K & J now command changes lives, and not just theirs. Sandilands and Henderson have the livelihoods and reputations of many hanging on their every move.

The one group not invested in, nor benefitting from, K & J’s financial windfall is their audience – both current and potential.

No jets, no yachts, no Gucci handbags or ridiculously expensive holiday homes. Their wants are simple: They want that Breakfast radio show that made them laugh, think, blush, cringe and – surprise, surprise – made them happy that they’d tuned in.

Is that still available?

Relationships wane.

Henderson herself recently admitted on air that she doesn’t listen to what Sandilands says as much as she used to. Sometimes when he speaks, she simply tunes out. Is the audience doing the same thing?

When it comes to the on-air bust up which has left Sandilands to hold down the fort while Henderson takes time off indefinitely, he is contrite, admitting he made a mistake.

“I didn’t realise what I was saying would hurt Jackie like that,” Sandilands told Radioinfo’s Steve Ahern yesterday.

Is it fixable?

Only if all the would-be fixers butt out. The only two people who can provide a happy end to this story are Kyle and Jackie O.