Regulator slaps restrictions on Kyle and Jackie O if they ever return to radio. Will it make any difference?

If the ARN radio network’s KIISFM stations want to resurrect Kyle Sandilands or Jackie “O” Henderson, either together, singly or in partnership with someone else, they will face significant new conditions on their broadcasting licence.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has produced a report^[1] reciting a litany of horrors committed by the show, and setting out the basis for these new conditions.

It comes a fortnight after the Kyle and Jackie O show imploded^[2], but it could turn out to be a preemptive strike that discourages ARN from getting either or both of them back on air.

The unfortunate timing is not a reflection on the ACMA’s personnel, who have been wringing their hands over this program for years, but on the deliberate hamstringing of the regulator by politicians either in thrall to, or frightened of, the commercial broadcasting sector.

Between June and December 2024, the ACMA conducted five investigations into the show. One of those five episodes alone contained discussions and descriptions of explicit sexual acts and references to sexually related hygiene.

As a result of these investigations, the ACMA found^[3] the network had repeatedly breached the decency clause of the commercial radio code of practice.

Then, in September 2025, the ACMA found the network to have breached the same decency clause in four more programs. These included sounds of men and women urinating as part of a guessing game in which listeners were invited to speculate on the size and shape of these people’s genitals.

In earlier years there had been breaches of decency in relation to comments about the Virgin Mary (2020), the Paralympics (2023) and monkeypox (2023).

ACMA’s responses to these crudities was to impose undertakings on the part of the network to employ a second censor on the show; deliver and expand code compliance training; conduct an independent assessment of its program controls, and report progress twice a year to the ACMA.

In its latest report, the ACMA acknowledges the futility of these measures. It says the network complied with its obligations but this “failed to ensure compliance”, and there had been “no material changes made to the show’s format”.

So it has imposed two new conditions, to apply for five years. The first says any program involving either Sandilands or Henderson must comply with the decency standard. The second says they must not broadcast content that is “highly offensive to an ordinary reasonable listener”.

Read more: For 27 years, the Kyle and Jackie O Show indulged Australia’s most vulgar, sexist impulses^[4]

It tells us a good deal about the attitude of the ARN network that it challenged the second condition on the grounds it was “unreasonable, inconsistent with the co-regulatory framework, uncertain in scope, and beyond the ACMA’s power”.

The ACMA has imposed it anyway, taking the chance that ARN will challenge it in the courts.

The fact it can even be argued that efforts to impose minimal standards of decency on a radio program are unreasonable and beyond the regulator’s power attests to the fundamental weakness of the law under which the ACMA operates, and the bankrupt state of the ARN network’s ethics.

The reference to the “co-regulatory framework” gives the game away. The ACMA must regulate collaboratively with the industry. It is a recipe for regulatory capture.

Two other conditions have also been imposed that affect the network more broadly.

These require the network to commission an independent audit of its governance framework to be completed within six months, and three months after that to provide the ACMA with a board-approved plan to implement the auditor’s recommendations.

ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin says the extra conditions^[5] mean further breaches will attract stronger enforcement action than had previously been available.

Perhaps.

ARN has made a statement to the stock exchange saying it respects the ACMA decision and will “consider options”. It also claims to have taken steps to ensure compliance.

But so far the only real consequences occurred when the presenters took matters into their own hands and self-destructed.

Sandilands, meanwhile, is under suspension for breaching his contract by engaging in “serious misconduct” with his on-air verbal assault on Henderson on March 3, in the aftermath of which she said she could no longer work on the program.

However, she has since said^[6] she did not resign and has engaged lawyers after ARN terminated her $100 million ten-year contract.

The task facing Sandilands is to “remedy” the situation his outburst caused, presumably by luring Henderson back. He has until March 17 to accomplish this.

References

1. ^{^} produced a report (www.acma.gov.au)
2. ^{^} imploded (www.abc.net.au)
3. ^{^} ACMA found (www.acma.gov.au)
4. ^{^} For 27 years, the Kyle and Jackie O Show indulged Australia’s most vulgar, sexist impulses (theconversation.com)
5. ^{^} says the extra conditions (www.smh.com.au)
6. ^{^} has since said (www.smh.com.au)