The progress Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson made in Melbourne has stalled, with the radio duo losing more listeners in the city, at a time the media regulator prepares sanctions on KIIS Network’s owner for failing to rein in their stars.
The Kyle and Jackie O Show, which this month picked up seven new breaches of broadcasting decency codes, surrendered 0.1 of a percentage point in Melbourne, according to the latest radio ratings.
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson have had their ratings slip as they await the media regulator to announce penalties for their station’s owner.
The show has shown recent signs of life after a horror first year in Melbourne, growing its share in the two previous ratings survey, but now landing on a 6 per cent share. It fell back to eighth place in the market in the all-important breakfast slot. The set survey timeslots do not always completely line up with the run time of different shows.
Despite the recent gains, The Kyle and Jackie O Show finds itself largely with the same audience size compared to the same survey one year ago, with 427,000 Melbourne listeners across the survey period, which spanned July 20 to September 27. In the corresponding survey in 2024, there were 420,000 cumulative listeners.
Christian O’Connell is Melbourne’s number one FM breakfast host.Credit: Eddie Jim
The KIIS Network’s owner, ARN, was offered some respite by the performance of its other station, Gold FM, which was again Melbourne’s top rating FM network with an 11.2 per cent share.
ARN is preparing to fight potential sanctions on its radio operations in Melbourne and Sydney, with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) currently considering additional licence conditions, which could include stipulating further requirements on what content the show puts to air.
Gold FM breakfast host Christian O’Connell, who will expand into Sydney next year, grew his Melbourne share, up by 0.9 of a percentage point to 10.9 per cent. He was only beaten by 3AW’s talkback pair, Russel Howcroft and Ross Stevenson, who recorded a 20.3 per cent share. 3AW had a total audience share of 14.6 per cent, up 1.1 percentage points. 3AW is owned by Nine, also the owner of this masthead.
Meanwhile, Radio National’s news breakfast show hosted by Sally Sara delivered its best result of the year with a 3.5 per cent share, up 1 percentage point compared to the previous survey. The ABC station’s total share was 2.4 per cent, up from 2.2 per cent.