Kyle Sandilands claims ARN unlawfully terminated his A$100 million contract after an on-air dispute. Photo / Getty Images
Sydney radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands has released a blistering statement after ARN Media announced on Wednesday morning that it had ripped up his 10-year contract.
The 54-year-old was a co-host of the morning radio show The Kyle and Jackie O Show that has dominated commercial breakfast radio for decades in Sydney. His contract was worth A$100 million ($121m).
In the statement, Sandilands said: “ARN has just announced that they’ve terminated my contract. I don’t accept it.
“My lawyers told them last week this would be invalid. And guess what? It is.
“Let me tell you what actually happened here. Jackie and I had a blue on air. That’s it. The kind of thing we’ve done a hundred times in 25 years. And ARN took the situation and decided to try and burn the place down.
“They sacked Jackie. They suspended me. They wouldn’t even let me pick up the phone to call her or anyone else on the show.
“Then – and this is the bit that gets me – once they’d made it impossible for the show to go on, they turn around and say, ‘You didn’t fix it. You’re fired!’
“I said sorry to Jackie the night of our blow-up. And when I said I was sorry to Jackie, I meant it. I still mean it. But it doesn’t mean I will stand by while I am separated from the people who’ve listened to me every morning for 25 years.
“Before they suspended me, ARN said, ‘Let us handle it’ and I listened.
“In the two weeks since, I’ve done everything ARN asked. I said, put me back on air. I’ll work with Jackie. I’ll work with someone else. Whatever you need. Every single time – ‘no’.
“They weren’t interested. They didn’t want to fix this. They thought they saw a chance to get out of the contract they signed with me a year ago, and they ran with it.
“ARN knew exactly what they were getting when they signed my deal. They’ve worked with me for over a decade.
“They knew how I work, they knew the show and they were happy to pay for it – because I delivered number-one ratings. Year after year. Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for their business.
“I held up my end. I always have.
“So, you tell me – why would ARN prefer to breach a contract and pay the legal consequences rather than honour the contract and pay me to do what I do best? That’s the bit that doesn’t make sense.
“I’ve got a contract until 2034. I’ve got rights under that contract. And ARN hasn’t honoured the contract. So it’s over to my lawyers.
“To the people who tune in every morning – you lot are the reason I’ve done this for 25 years. You didn’t get a say in this. Neither did I. But my lawyers will.
“I’m not done. Not by a long way.”
This saga began back on February 20 when Sandilands and Jackie O. had a huge disagreement on air.
Jackie O. was reduced to tears after Sandilands criticised her recent performance at work, saying she had been “unfocused” and “off with the fairies” because of her obsession with astrology.
Jackie O. took more than a week off the breakfast show after the disagreement, leaving Sandilands to host solo.
Then, on March 3, ARN dropped a bombshell, saying it had terminated Jackie O.’s contract because she had allegedly told them she “could not continue to work with Mr Kyle Sandilands”.
“ARN has also offered to Ms Henderson the possibility of an alternative show on the ARN network,” the network said.
In the same announcement, ARN said it considered Sandilands’ behaviour during that show on February 20 to be an “act of serious misconduct” which it claimed was in breach of his contract.
They took him off air and gave him 14 days to remedy the breach, with ARN never revealing publicly what they wanted Sandilands to do to “remedy” the situation.
As Sandilands said in his statement, he feels as if he was set an impossible task by ARN.
The shock jock, and most industry experts, were fairly certain that ARN would terminate his contract at the end of that 14-day deadline, which has now happened.
Sandilands is the most famous broadcaster on Australian radio, and the breakfast show he co-hosted was No 1 on the FM dial in Sydney, so why would ARN want to get rid of him?
Insiders believe it could be linked to that staggering A$100m contract he signed with ARN in 2023, which was meant to keep him on air until the end of 2034.
According to insiders, ARN simply couldn’t afford to honour the deal.
The radio network inked the contract with the intention of rolling out The Kyle and Jackie O Show nationally, meaning they wouldn’t have to pay for local breakfast shows in each city.
That plan was left in tatters though when the show bombed in Melbourne, with ARN then putting national rollout plans on hold.
It meant ARN had to pay Sandilands and Jackie O.’s massive salaries, plus fund local breakfast shows in all cities apart from Sydney and Melbourne.
To make matters worse, advertisers started pulling out of The Kyle and Jackie O Show, thanks in part to a campaign run by a group called “Mad F***ing Witches (MFW)”.
The group, determined to remove Sandilands from radio, encouraged its members to call the show’s advertisers and to “simply ask them to stop funding the hate”.
The group claimed to have “had more than 540 advertisers withdraw” from sponsoring The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
All of these factors combined severely damaged ARN’s bottom line and resulted in hundreds of staff being let go in a bid to cut costs.
In 2025, ARN reported that its metro radio revenue dropped by 16.1%, or A$28.3m, with the company making a net profit after tax of just $6.1m.
Sandilands’ chances of returning to work on KIIS FM were dealt another blow earlier this week when the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) imposed additional licence conditions on ARN.
Under the conditions, ARN was told it would have to ensure that any programme hosted by Sandilands or Jackie O. for the next five years “does not broadcast content which is highly offensive or which contains strong and explicit sexual references by the standards of an ordinary reasonable listener”.
If those standards were breached, the ACMA said ARN could be slapped with penalties including “court‑enforceable undertakings, remedial directions, civil penalties, or suspension or cancellation of the broadcasting licence”.
ARN has now terminated both Sandilands and Jackie O.’s radio contracts, and both could end up filing lawsuits against their former employer.
Last week 2GB radio host Ben Fordham predicted “this will be the biggest court case of 2026!”
“Who the players are in court, I don’t know yet,” he added. “Will it be Kyle? Will it be Jackie? Will it be both? It’s gonna be fascinating to watch.”
As for ARN, the radio network is now without a KIIS FM breakfast show in both Melbourne and Sydney.
Former Edge announcer Mike E. is currently filling in on air, but it’s unclear how long he’ll stick around for.
Will ARN hire a new breakfast team for Melbourne and Sydney, or will it let Mike E. fill in until the legal showdown with Sandilands is over?
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