{"id":391316,"date":"2026-04-22T01:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T01:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/391316\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T01:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T01:03:22","slug":"kyle-and-jackie-o-boss-michael-stephenson-faces-heat-over-his-fat-pay-packet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/391316\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle and Jackie O boss Michael Stephenson faces heat over his fat pay packet"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 22, 2026 \u2014 5:00am<\/p>\n

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All eyes may be on Kyle Sandilands and Jackie \u201cO\u201d Henderson this week, as the former radio co-hosts prepare to have their cases heard by the Federal Court on Friday morning. But the dual legal matters make up just one battle faced by the duo\u2019s bosses at their former parent company, ARN Media.<\/p>\n

The KIIS FM owner has come under mounting scrutiny ahead of what promises to be a blockbuster annual general meeting next month, when ARN chief executive Michael Stephenson and chairman Hamish \u201cThe Hammer\u201d McLennan will face investors for the first time since the spectacular bust-up. And the company\u2019s executive team is already coming under fire.<\/p>\n

\"ARNARN Media chief executive Michael Stephenson pictured while he was chief sales officer of Nine Entertainment. James Brickwood<\/p>\n

In a report to investors obtained by CBD, the influential proxy advisor CGI Glass Lewis took aim at Stephenson\u2019s pay packet, which clocks in at a cool $1.1 million. Not bad for a company with a share price in the toilet!<\/p>\n

Glass Lewis suggested Stepho is simply being paid too much relative to the company\u2019s plummeting value, and that his fixed pay remains \u201cmaterially above\u201d the median of about $812,075 seen across the ASX\u2019s top 250-300 companies. (ARN fell out of the top 500 companies in March.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOn balance, the level of CEO pay is considered excessive relative to the company\u2019s current market positioning and performance, and support for the remuneration report is not considered warranted at this time,\u201d the firm said in its report, very diplomatically.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

ARN, through a spokesman, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time the radio bosses have come under fire for being overpaid. Glass Lewis had previously held concerns about the $1.2 million pay packet awarded to Stepho\u2019s predecessor, Ciaran Davis, whose departure was announced last year.<\/p>\n

But beyond pay, the proxy firm was otherwise pretty supportive \u2013 particularly so when you consider ARN remains at war with its marquee talent over roughly $160 million, and doesn\u2019t know how big a hit it expects to take from the action.<\/p>\n

One crucial showing of support was that afforded to McLennan, the same chairman that Sandilands referred to in a recent interview as being responsible for both signing and taking away his eye-watering deal, who is up for re-election at next month\u2019s AGM.<\/p>\n

The Hammer managed to secure Glass Lewis\u2019 support for re-election next month despite adding yet another board role to his plate just weeks ago, and being the subject of rumblings from ARN\u2019s highest-profile shareholders over the company\u2019s handling of the Kyle and Jackie O saga.<\/p>\n

Last time this masthead got a sense<\/a> of the ARN leadership team\u2019s popularity among shareholders, the mood was foreboding.<\/p>\n

There was the proverbial \u201cwriting on the wall\u201d. Plans to \u201cattend the AGM\u201d. A lot remains in the air for ARN as things stand, including the company\u2019s reason for being. But one thing we\u2019re left feeling pretty confident about is that, come the AGM on May 7, the circus is coming to town, with The Hammer cast as ringmaster.<\/p>\n

The Oz photo desk gets caught short<\/p>\n

Having axed pretty much its entire picture desk years ago, it was no surprise to see The Australian caught short when Ben Roberts-Smith drove out of Silverwater prison last Friday.<\/p>\n

What did raise eyebrows \u2013 not least among their own former photographers \u2013 was the spectacular image shot by our talented Herald colleague Sam Mooy, which ran on the front page of the national broadsheet\u2019s weekend edition, with credit and all.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Herald continued to do its job, capturing an image of Ben Roberts Smith departing Silverwater Correctional Complex.Sam Mooy<\/p>\n

Of course, our editors aren\u2019t perfect either, but we couldn\u2019t help being amused by the move, given the fervour with which the national broadsheet has written about this column\u2019s own recent photo failure: a photo of Rupert Murdoch leaving his 95th birthday in New York. (We acknowledge the irony \u2013 but at least we ended up paying!)<\/p>\n

The Australian\u2019s story, which was written by NSW editor Stephen Rice, led off news of BRS being granted bail pending his war crime trial and continued on to page six, where we think we found the answer to our question.<\/p>\n

On page six, the story was accompanied by a different photo shot by Liam Mendes, a journalist at The Oz. We can only guess Mooy\u2019s was just better.<\/p>\n

But our efforts to find out more turned up nothing. It was crickets from the newspaper\u2019s editor, Michelle Gunn, who didn\u2019t pick up our call or return our text. A spokesman for News Corp Australia didn\u2019t have anything to add either.<\/p>\n

Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann rendezvous in Paris<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to see old dogs learn new tricks. Such was our reaction to seeing former federal treasurer-turned-Trump-whisperer Joe Hockey pictured with former finance minister Mathias Cormann, now secretary-general of the OECD, make time for a rendezvous in Paris this week.<\/p>\n

The two men were pictured walking the streets of Paris early on Tuesday morning, in photos posted to Instagram by Hockey captioned \u201cParis catchup\u201d; \u201cStill chatting budgets\u201d. Later, \u201cBut it\u2019s Paris \u2026 \u201d, and finally, \u201cGreat mates forever\u201d. And not a cigar in sight!<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"JohnJohn Buckley<\/a> is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email<\/a>.\"FionaFiona Byrne<\/a> is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 22, 2026 \u2014 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-391316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}