Kyle Sandilands has admitted that he and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson aren’t worth the ten-year, $200 million contract they are currently on at ARN, but says the network had no choice but to pay them.

On the Kyle and Jackie O Show on Tuesday morning, the pair segued out of a ‘super kid challenge’ where a smart child is pitted against an adult in a quiz. After telling the contestant to “keep educating herself” and that “only the very best” educated people earn top money, he quickly admitted to Henderson this wasn’t true, “cos you and I weren’t that smart”.

After conceding it’s “not great” to tell children you can earn big money without being educated, Henderson noted, “for those kids who struggle in school, it’s good for them to know.”

Sandilands agreed: “Like kids like me that are dumb as. I earn more than the prime minister, a brain surgeon, a CEO. Anyone who owns anything. Um, what else do I earn more than? Like, we did pretty well for a couple of dopes.

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“Although a lot of people say: ‘Are they worth it?’ And, we can’t agree with that. Sure, we get paid, but are we worth that much? No. Will we take it regardless? Yes.”

Sandilands then went on to explain how they ended up with the most lucrative contract in Australian radio history.

“So, it was the perfect storm. We were coming up to a contract deal here,” he began.

“The old radio station [2DayFM] let’s say the ex-girlfriend, rang up and was like, ‘Hey’, pulled the undies to the side. ‘You want a bit of this?’ They offered us a lot of money to come back to the old network.”

It should be noted here that the communications watchdog ACMA is looking to impose a new licence condition that will ban the Kyle and Jackie O Show from using strong and explicit sexual references – like the ones above (and below).

Sandilands continued: “Then we, being good staff members here at KIIS, ran straight to our boss. ‘Oh boss. They’ve offered us 10 years and $100 million to go back. And that’d be like rooting an ex-girlfriend and we’d rather stay here rooting you guys, but you’re gonna have to pay. Them the rules’. And then they didn’t like it and had to pay anyway.

“So are we worth it? No. Was it the perfect storm? Yeah. And that’s how it is.”

Henderson seemed unimpressed with Sandilands’ blunt appraisal, sarcastically adding “good share” and “love sharing all those intimate details – it’s really nice that you can do that”.

Sandilands then continued to lay the boot into their network, and the media outlets who have opined the duo weren’t worth the money.

“You’ll read some articles like saying [parent company] ‘ARN’s made a terrible decision’. No, no, no. They had no choice to make that decision or we would’ve gone back to the other network. [At this point, Henderson interjects with ‘Guy Sebastian is coming up next’] It would be at the AMs, if it wasn’t the AMs, we’d be off doing our own podcast.”

Kyle and Jackie O each earn more than 16 Prime Ministers, based on Albanese’s pay

In July 2023, it was reported that Sandilands and Henderson were mulling over a move back to their previous station 2DayFM, owned by Southern Cross Austereo, when the pair’s previous ten-year contract, which saw them each earn $5 million a year, expired at the end of 2024.

It was widely reported at the time that SCA were “pretty aggressive” in their pursuit of the duo. By September 2023, it was the industry’s worst-kept secret that Sandilands and Henderson were close to re-signing to ARN with a ten-year, $200 million contract that would effectively double their yearly salaries. By November 2023, the pair had signed on for that amount.

At this point, Sandilands had been complaining on-air about being undervalued by the ARN network for years. In 2021, he complained: “We make them hundreds of millions of dollars and they barely even recognise our existence, after first warning that “one day, we’re just going to not be there.”

In 2013, when the pair jumped shipped from 2DayFM to the newly-launched KIIS station in Sydney, they proved they were capable of bringing their large audience across to an untested network — which would have no doubt been in the minds of ARN executives ten years later, as they signed the pair to the historic deal.

They had held the number one FM show in the Sydney breakfast timeslot since 2005 for 2DayFM, then immediately tied at #1 (with WSFM) in the pair’s first survey for 2014, watching their old slot at 2DayFM slip from first to fourth.

The Kyle and Jackie O Show moved KIIS 1065’s breakfast ratings from a 3.3% to a 9.3%, while 2Day dropped from 10.4% to 3.8%. The pair have held the top FM slot in Sydney breakfast ever since.

As Sandilands said, it was the perfect storm.

“Maybe Guy’s got detailed questions about the contract negotiation,” he joked, as Henderson cut to a Guy Sebastian song.

After the break, Sebastian failed to ask the pair any probing contractual questions, opting instead to promote his new single.

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