For 27 years, the Kyle and Jackie O Show indulged Australia’s most vulgar, sexist impulses

The astonishingly successful Kyle and Jackie O radio show on KIIS FM is dead.

Jackie “O” Henderson resigned and Kyle Sandilands has been suspended for 14 days after he attacked her on air, accusing her of underperforming and being “off with the fairies” in what he said was her fixation with astrology^[1].

The fact their partnership lasted 27 years and was one of the most successful in radio history invites a reflection on the contradiction between the kind of society we say we want and the kind of media we prize.

We live at a time of social divisiveness and say we want respectfulness. We live at a time when women are killed by their intimate partners at the rate of about one every eight days^[2]. We say it’s a scourge that must stop.

And yet this program, which showcased disrespect and misogyny^[3], topped the Sydney radio ratings for many years and its presenters were paid eye-watering sums^[4] to keep it going.

A multimillion-dollar disaster

It is true it flopped in Melbourne^[5] and was primarily a Sydney phenomenon, but the show was intended to become national.

In anticipation of a national rollout, Sandilands and Henderson were reported^[6] to have each signed $10 million-a-year contracts through to 2034, a total commitment of $200 million by the station’s owner ARN.

However, Melbourne radio audiences have never shown an appetite for the kind of vulgar shock-jockery that has been a feature of Sydney radio for decades. Neil Mitchell, who dominated the mornings ratings in Melbourne for many years on 3AW, was a caustic commentator and relentless interviewer, but never descended to outright abuse.

The failure in Melbourne led to the planned national rollout being scrapped^[7] at considerable financial cost to the network.

Who was tuning in? Young men

Why was Kyle and Jackie O’s schtick of crudity, sexism and misogyny so popular? A look at the show’s demographics suggests some insights.

The live radio show’s audience was skewed to the 18–39 age bracket but also contained a substantial teenage following^[8].

It also had a large podcast following, and this audience skewed male^[9], although it also contained a substantial female component, and did very well in North America as well as Australia.

Together, these data suggest it answered some need, particularly among younger men, for a means of vicariously unleashing their frustrations, including their frustrations concerning women, as well as indulging a taste for scatological humour.

One consequence was that the Kyle and Jackie O show had a significant and socially damaging impact on Australian radio content standards.

It contributed to the normalisation of tolerance for extreme sexist content on Australian radio, particularly in Sydney. Alan Jones, when he was king of Sydney radio on 2GB, was infamously misogynistic^[10] about the then prime minister Julia Gillard, saying she ought to be taken out to sea and dumped in a chaff bag.

John Laws, Jones’s rival in Sydney, was not to be outdone. He told a woman^[11] who criticised him to “say something constructive, like you’re going to kill yourself”.

Decades of breaches

So what was the broadcast regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, doing while Sandilands and Henderson were making millions from this vulgarity and misogyny?

In 2009, the show was taken off air after the authority found it breached broadcasting guidelines^[12] by attaching a teenage girl to a lie detector and asking her if she had been raped.

Last October, ARN was threatened with action^[13] if it did not rein in their “vulgar, sexually explicit and deeply offensive” commentary.