Chrissie Swan has emerged as a strong contender to replace Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson on the airwaves in Melbourne.
There has been rampant speculation about who will succeed the duo on breakfast on KIIS FM since ARN radio bosses tore up Sandilands’ and Henderson’s $100 million 10-year contracts.
Although the duo have long dominated the ratings in Sydney, it is Melbourne radio bosses are focused on.
Melburnian Swan, who has found herself holding down the unglamorous 2pm-4pm school-run slot on Nova after being shunted from Nova’s breakfast shift in 2022, is well liked.
If her former radio partner Sam Pang were to be persuaded to reunite with Swan, ARN execs would sit up and take note.
Swan recorded an 8.2 (up 0.4) radio ratings share in Melbourne in the latest radio survey results released on Thursday. (She and DJ Mel Tracina split the noon to 4pm slot).
Swan’s result is 60 per cent better than Sandilands and Henderson’s final Melbourne survey result. That result was 5.1.
Longtime Sandilands’ critic Dave Hughes is also out of contract.
A reunion with former partner Kate Langbroek, with whom he hosted a breakfast show for 12 years on Nova before the duo moved to KIIS FM’s drive program in 2015, could also be well received down south.
Then there is the youthful KIIS FM drive duo of Will and Woody, aka Will McMahon and Woody Whitelaw, also from Melbourne and already on the books.
Sydney will be a more difficult proposition, with Sandilands’ and Henderson’s regular listeners expected to switch off in high numbers.
Claims Carrie Bickmore and her radio partner Tommy Little might be persuaded to jump radio companies and timeslots were scotched by industry vets who claimed the duo are under contract until the end of the year, which should provide their employer Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) with ample time to lock them in again.
There was early speculation ARN might look to plug the gap left by Sandilands and Henderson with long-time Gold101.7/WSFM breakfast favourites Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones, newly transplanted to Drive.
Keller and Jones was one of few bright spots for ARN in the latest radio survey results and the only nationally networked program to romp home.
They delivered an impressive 12 share in Melbourne in the latest survey while remaining static in Sydney’s drive slot with 8.4.
It seems unlikely bosses will move them yet their program is the most obvious fix.
And then there’s the prayer; that ARN can persuade Henderson (as it indicated it might in its March 3 statement to the ASX) to remain in the KIIS FM fold and return to Breakfast on greatly reduced salary with a new co-host, preferably a Melbourne-bred male and not Marty Sheargold.
Some believe Henderson might be one of few women who could make a partnership with Sheargold work.
Jackie O agent’s $1m buy before firm collapse
The month before failed celebrity agent Gemma O’Neill called in the liquidators to her debt-ridden talent agency, the self-styled entrepreneur spent $1,025,000 on a country cottage she claims to have “manifested” with BFF Jackie “O” Henderson.
O’Neill’s Gemmie Agency Pty Ltd went into voluntary liquidation with debts totalling $546,848 in November.
A statutory creditors report filed last month by administrators Grant Thornton Australia confirmed liquidators are currently pursuing O’Neill, the business’s founder and sole director, for outstanding monies on behalf of creditors including the Australian Taxation Office.
On a podcast aired on February 4, O’Neill gushed to Henderson of having “manifested hard” – despite having little money – on “a little country style cottage and a vegie garden”.
“I said something along the lines of ‘Although I’m broke now so I have no idea how I’m ever going to ever afford this’. And now we have a little country cottage,” one-time radio executive O’Neill told Henderson on the women’s Her Best Life podcast, which O’Neill now hosts solo following Henderson’s withdrawal.
Property records show O’Neill purchased the three-bedroom weatherboard Fitzroy Falls home in the NSW Southern Highlands on October 3, 2025 – seven weeks before she called in liquidators to wind up Gemmie Agency on November 25.
The Fitzroy Falls house settled three weeks later on December 17, allowing O’Neill and Henderson a chance to celebrate Christmas and New Year at the house with O’Neill’s two sons and her partner Scott.
While the subject of O’Neill’s business collapse and subsequent liquidation didn’t come up during the February 4 chat with Henderson, the topic of manifestation boards and astrology – the subject that blew up Henderson’s two-decades-long radio partnership with KIIS FM radio host Kyle Sandilands on February 20 – did.
“Since 2018 I’ve been divorced, I’ve moved house, I’ve been through some of the hardest things in my entire life – (but) everything is good now though,” O’Neill said, blaming the disruptive force of Uranus and provoking Henderson to lament that the planet had also been loitering in her astrological house.
Records show two months after O’Neill moved into the 1950s Fitzroy Falls house on 936 sqm of land, the home was back on the market. That was February 10.
The previous day, liquidators had written to the embattled businesswoman requesting full repayment of $421,783 in loans owed to her insolvent company.
On February 20, O’Neill acknowledged the debt to administrators but informed them she was in no financial position to make any contribution toward repayment as she had no available personal savings, limited income, and previous attempts to refinance or otherwise raise funds had been unsuccessful.
“(O’Neill) has indicated she is willing to co-operate and provide supporting documentation but has confirmed that she cannot offer any meaningful settlement at this time,” the administrator’s report stated, before also noting O’Neill’s firm may have been insolvent since December 2024.
As O’Neill would explain to Henderson on February 4, her poor financial position was partly due to the recent expansive renovation of her Sydney home.
Records show O’Neill’s primary home to be a four-bedroom waterfront apartment in Clovelly overlooking the ocean.
The apartment, one of three in a complex, is only three doors from Henderson’s own under-construction clifftop home, estimated completed value $20 million, with views over Gordon’s Bay and Wedding Cake Island.
Records show O’Neill, then using her married name Fordham, paid $2.6 million for the apartment in 2021. The following year, the property was transferred to her for $0 following the couple’s separation.
The same week O’Neill called in liquidators to her talent agency, which recently also represented Samantha Armytage, O’Neill’s brightly renovated Clovelly home was featured on home makeover site, ThreeBirdsRenovations.com.
Wearing her second hat as CEO of ThreeBirdsRenovations.com, a role she took on last year, O’Neill spruiked her Clovelly home and its funky redesign (complete with backyard plunge pool) on November 21 along with plans to make the property available for short stay rentals.
“Gem wanted the flexibility to turn their home into a guest-ready stay the moment the family jets off on holiday as a way to help pay for the trip and make future adventures feel even sweeter,” the accompanying article states.
A YouTube clip recorded around the same time captures O’Neill saying she and her children were headed to Fiji for a holiday.
O’Neill has had one big payday in recent years.
Over the summer of 2023/2024 she invoiced for a $1,042,505.01 commission paid by one unnamed “high value” client.
During the same period, Henderson renegotiated her now cancelled $100 million ARN contract. The seven-figure sum would be the equivalent of around 1 per cent of that contract had it emanated from Henderson.
On the same February 4 podcast episode, Henderson announced her withdrawal from a second joint project with O’Neill.
In addition to retreating from the podcast, she has pulled out of event management business Besties Australia Pty Ltd, founded by the two BFFs in October 2022 and launched in July 2023.
The company has arranged a $3000-per-head retreat featuring Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in Sydney next month.
O’Neill was approached for comment.
KYLE’S IDOL FUTURE A MYSTERY
Kyle Sandilands’ future as a judge on Australian Idol remains under a cloud with the network offering up nothing about the program’s future.
Sandilands is locked in for the extent of the current series, which is expected to run until early April although Seven declined to confirm the series finale date.
Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.
Seven also declined to confirm whether the series, now in its eleventh season, will proceed to a twelfth.
It was also unwilling to shed any light on whether Seven’s commercial partnership with radio company ARN will be impacted by the cancellation of Sandilands’ radio program.
Seven runs ads for Idol in Sandilands’ KIIS FM breakfast show.
A source insisted Seven’s relationship with ARN was stable despite Sandilands’ departure.
GOLDEN BACHELOR LINKS
What is it with Nine program The Golden Bachelor’s inability to find bachelors without links to the broadcaster?
Season one of The Golden Bachelor featured Barry “Bear” Myrden who, 13 years prior, appeared on Nine news program A Current Affair when he and his then-dying wife Audrey were gifted a house.
Now with season two, incoming bachelor Mat Collett also has connections to the broadcaster.
Collett previously romanced a former Nine unit publicist.
Collett, a father of three, investor and proud Scots College old boy (class of 1986) was for a time involved with high-profile Sydney PR operator Sally Burleigh, ex-wife of actor and Water Rats star Steve Bisley.
As a former president of the Scots’ Old Boys Union, he also has connections to the school’s many high-profile media identities.
Proving how tight Sydney’s entertainment community is, then there’s Collett’s business association with talent agent Titus Day.
A decade ago, Collett and Day, ex-manager of Grant Denyer, Sophie Monk and Guy Sebastian (the men went to war in court over claims and counterclaims of unpaid commissions), were business partners in sunscreen Solar D Skincare.
The pair remain friends.
Collett is not the only Golden Bachelor on the latest series of the dating show, which is now shooting in Sydney.
The second bachelor is contract logistics manager Ed Savage.
We haven’t yet turned up any of Ed’s potential historic connections to Nine, but we won’t be at all surprised if he was recruited after being spotted behind the wheel of a freight truck in Nine’s carpark.
Read related topics:Melbourne