Provocative radio duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson have sunk to their equal worst ratings result since launching their show in Melbourne two years ago, ending 2025 on a low.
It ends an already torrid year for the duo, who are on a pay deal worth $200 million over a decade, their network KIIS and parent company ARN Media. The performance has also prompted a rethink of The Kyle and Jackie O Show’s planned national rollout that helped justify the hosts’ pay packets.
In Brisbane, the network has brought back the previously dumped breakfast trio Robin, Kip & Corey for 2026, and it has former Nova and Triple J personalities Ben Harvey and Liam Stapleton scheduled to start in Adelaide.
ARN would have to just give up with KIIS1011 Melbourne. They cannot pour resources into it locally - and even if they do, it’s useless. It’s too similar to The Fox & Nova100. This bullet was dodged in Adelaide & Brisbane with their formats remaining/returning as variety.
As for Nine Radio, traditionally the Summer period sees a dip as listeners predominantly prefer music. They’ll bounce back as the news issues pick up.
KIIS Melbourne should flip to a Brisbane/Adelaide variety playlist, it’d push the dayside numbers up even ignoring K&JO. The station average would probably be much higher than breakfast.
Just dump K&JO in Melbourne and run music with local news and traffic inserts.
K&JO are just not a national brand, they are a local Sydney breakfast show that will never work in Melbourne or else where. I think its now proven that they are over paid talent.
The problem ARN face is that a move like that would eat into the success of Gold. Gold historically had an older audience and they’ve moved younger since around the time COC started because there was a gap in the market. It’s arguably better to have a #1 station and one they can say they’re working on rather than having maybe the #3 and #4 at best stations.
Survey 8 is only partly a summer survey. The survey period ended on 13 December, only two weeks into summer. It’s actually eight weeks of spring and two weeks of summer.
The first survey of 2026 is the real summer survey - all six weeks of the survey are conducted in summer.
Note to advertisers, when Greg Byrnes notes that Survey 8 is a “summer reality” and that’s why numbers were down at 2GB and 3AW - he must be expecting audience numbers to crash in Survey 1, 2026!
Meanwhile, I just completed the paper survey for Survey 8 and now I am going to wear the Media Watch for part of the next survey. It can hear which radio stations I am listening to and I simply download the data each night for GfK. Such a good idea as even if I walk into a shop or am in the car with a friend, it will know what radio I am consuming.
3MP has dropped the last two surveys, and Magic 1278 isn’t gaining any traction. Although with audiences for those stations being such a small sample, any changes aren’t really all that meaningful. But sad they’re doing so poorly when each sounds pretty good.
Yes, it’s a bit sad for 3MP/Magic. Especially compared with 4BH, but also 2UE had a good survey too - cracking 4% and just behind 2MMM.
I think it’s a case of them splitting the audience between the two AM stations. You’d have to wonder if they wouldn’t be better off to somehow “merge” the classic hits audience onto one of the stations (I’d go with 3MP) and then launch a new format on the other, perhaps something more talk-based/light entertainment.
The other thing I’ll be really interested to watch is Perth once ABC goes FM there - it should result in a good bump in ratings. I wouldn’t want to be the (new) owner of 6PR trying to compete with ABC Local on FM. If ABC Perth on FM goes really well then the pressure will be on to get the other metro ABC locals onto FM, even if they’ve got to shunt Classic FM.
Zero sympathy. Hosts and producers forgot people want a break from the battles of daily life - not Fifi reading out Herald Sun articles and Facebook comments about crime. Maybe get an early-mid career Melbourne comedian? Which is how it used to happen in decades past??
Very big drop in numbers for John Stanley in both Sydney and Brisbane on 2GB and 4BC (although he has had big drops and gains over various surveys in 25).
Surely that’s also one of the worst results for 2GB drive. With Thomas Oriti starting at ABC this week he’d take confidence that he’s in striking distance.
1278’s signal is better in most of Melbourne - the planned upgrades to 3MP in those MTR days I don’t think ever resulted in much, it’s always been pretty poor coverage.
The two stations are wrongly positioned. Magic is the wrong branding for Melbourne - people aren’t enticed to sample Magic, because the name will still remind most people of the really dated format from the pre-Talking Lifestyle days, not the decent classic hits station it is now. Picking out of ACE’s bag, even just “Star 1278” would be good enough; just get away from that baggage and promote it a bit.
3MP I think just they are still dealing with the consequences of being screwed around in their format for so long - they probably lost their listeners equally to Smooth and Light. I think though it’s the spot to be - easy listening - just lean a bit more into being a local station for the bayside suburbs. They seem to do traffic with a local focus, but not much of the rest of the station. If they wanted to get away format wise, either the old Aussie or KOOOL DAB stations would be great formats to revive.
