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Kyle Sandilands' new show: Political, glitchy, uncensored · The Morning Edition

• 0:04
  S1: Kyle Sandilands once commanded massive audiences on commercial radio before
• 0:09
  S1: his now infamous sacking, and on Monday, his new subscriber
• 0:13
  S1: only live show was launched.
• 0:16
  S2: The Golden Microphone is on.
• 0:20
  S1: It was the old Sandilands, but even more uncensored and
• 0:24
  S1: with a political bent featuring guests including the New South
• 0:27
  S1: Wales premier, Chris Minns and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
• 0:32
  S1: So why do we care? And what does this new
• 0:35
  S1: era of media, free of the rules of commercial radio signify?
• 0:41
  S1: I'm Samantha Selinger Morris and you're listening to The Morning
• 0:44
  S1: Edition from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today
• 0:48
  S1: we have two guests. First up is culture reporter Kayla
• 0:51
  S1: Olaiya and then senior columnist Jacqueline Maley. Welcome, Kayla, to
• 0:57
  S1: the podcast.
• 0:58
  S3: Thank you for having me, Sam.
• 1:00
  S1: Okay. well, Kayla, you just listened to all four hours
• 1:03
  S1: of Kyle Sandilands new show on Monday. So I guess
• 1:07
  S1: just tell us. Is this Kyle unleashed in a way
• 1:09
  S1: that he perhaps wasn't even on his, you know, infamous
• 1:13
  S1: radio show? Or is it much of the same?
• 1:15
  S3: It depends on who you ask. I mean, I've only
• 1:18
  S3: really listened to snippets here and there throughout the years,
• 1:21
  S3: in my opinion. The crude jokes and the sexualised jokes
• 1:26
  S3: felt very similar. However, this is him going down a
• 1:30
  S3: much more political route. He openly expressed his support for
• 1:34
  S3: Pauline Hanson's One Nation, even having the leader herself come
• 1:39
  S3: on and called her directly and held up the phone
• 1:43
  S3: to the microphone and discussed, well, multiple opinions and views
• 1:48
  S3: that they aligned in.
• 1:50
  S1: Okay, so I guess just tell us who were the
• 1:52
  S1: guests and what were the major things that they said?
• 1:54
  S1: Like what are the moments that really stick out for you?
• 1:56
  S3: Oh boy. So many. So much. Um, so the first
• 2:02
  S3: one we had was John Edward, the celebrity sidekick. We
• 2:07
  S3: also had Chris Minns in the studio. Then Pauline Hanson
• 2:11
  S3: via a phone call. But I should also add that
• 2:13
  S3: all of these were occurring in the backdrop of horrific
• 2:18
  S3: technological issues. So it was actually pretty even. It was
• 2:22
  S3: hard actually to hear anything that John Edwards was saying.
• 2:26
  S3: And then Chris Minns. Yeah, he was in the studio,
• 2:29
  S3: but it cut out. You could barely see him cut
• 2:30
  S3: the ribbon. Pauline Hanson was actually on speakerphone, while Kyle
• 2:35
  S3: Sandilands held his phone to the microphone and her voice
• 2:38
  S3: was ricocheting.
• 2:40
  S4: Hey, Arnie. Pauline, it's Kyle, you're on live. How are you?
• 2:43
  S4: I'm okay. You don't mind? I'm calling you Auntie Pauline
• 2:46
  S4: and the press, do you? Because that's how I feel.
• 2:49
  S5: No, I think it's fantastic. Actually. I think it's, um.
• 2:52
  S5: It's a it's a form of respect. Oh it is.
• 2:55
  S5: You know.
• 2:56
  S3: Then there was a stepson and step mum who started dating.
• 3:02
  S1: And wait a minute. A stepmother is dating her stepson.
• 3:08
  S3: Yeah, it's very much sounds like a porn headline writing
• 3:12
  S3: this down. But essentially there is this Gold Coast couple,
• 3:17
  S3: which this woman started dating a man, and the man
• 3:21
  S3: filmed her in bed with his 19 year old son
• 3:26
  S3: at the time. And this was earlier this year, a
• 3:28
  S3: few months ago. So they were the second in studio
• 3:32
  S3: guests of Kyle Sandilands live.
• 3:35
  S1: Interesting. Okay. And so I guess this brings us to
• 3:37
  S1: the next point, which is people are paying for this show, right?
• 3:40
  S1: This is not for free. So I guess tell us
• 3:43
  S1: what the financial structure is here. Like how much do
• 3:45
  S1: people have to pay? And is Kyle and his team,
• 3:49
  S1: are they gambling on this show making enough money to
• 3:51
  S1: keep it afloat, or is that just a given, given
• 3:54
  S1: that he has a lot of fans, even though he
• 3:57
  S1: of course lost his job just recently at kiss FM?
• 4:00
  S3: Well, it's $99.99 to listen to this, and you actually
• 4:06
  S3: don't really get the option to pay monthly or to
• 4:09
  S3: trial it out. You have to pay that one lump
• 4:12
  S3: sum annual fee. So even if you just want to
• 4:15
  S3: listen to it once you're paying that. So I'm sure
• 4:18
  S3: that he's making a decent amount of money because he
• 4:20
  S3: is a subscriber led digital subscription that, you know, most
• 4:24
  S3: media companies are taking. I mean, Kyle referenced throughout the
• 4:29
  S3: four hour show that, you know, he was very wealthy.
• 4:33
  S3: He was referencing multiple multi-million dollar contracts. So I'm sure
• 4:37
  S3: he has enough in the bank to hold the actual
• 4:40
  S3: show afloat.
• 4:41
  S1: Okay. And so I wanted to ask you about the
• 4:43
  S1: tone of the show because you said it was quite crude.
• 4:46
  S1: So is this really just a bunch of men being offensive?
• 4:48
  S1: Because at one moment, and I want you to tell
• 4:50
  S1: us about this, he seemed to rebuke his manager and
• 4:53
  S1: his friend Bruno Bouchet, who was on the show and
• 4:57
  S1: referred to Kyle Sandilands, executive producer by an expletive, which
• 5:02
  S1: you can say will have to beep it out. But
• 5:03
  S1: just tell us what happened.
• 5:05
  S3: Yeah. So about ten minutes into the show, Kyle's long
• 5:09
  S3: term manager and close friend, Bruno Bouchet, was asked by
• 5:13
  S3: Sandilands whether the new executive producer, Jamie Mayo Blazquez, was
• 5:19
  S3: any different to last time. I'm assuming that they worked together.
• 5:23
  S3: Arn and Bouchet referred to her as the C-bomb, to
• 5:27
  S3: which Kyle replied jokingly, Bruno. I made it quite clear
• 5:31
  S3: to the ensemble cast that this isn't some potty mouth
• 5:33
  S3: all boys club filth nest, so he kind of off
• 5:37
  S3: the bat set the tone. But I would say if
• 5:39
  S3: you listen to the whole four hours of it, I'm
• 5:41
  S3: not entirely sure whether he stuck to that tone. There
• 5:45
  S3: were a lot of, I guess, crude sexual jokes that
• 5:48
  S3: were made at the expense of women or probing women
• 5:51
  S3: in a way that I think felt a bit more
• 5:52
  S3: vulgar than those questions being directed at men. And other
• 5:56
  S3: than that, I would say it definitely took a much
• 5:59
  S3: more political tone.
• 6:00
  S1: And obviously in the radio iteration of Kyle Sandilands show.
• 6:04
  S1: Jackie O was, depending on who you ask, you know,
• 6:07
  S1: his foil, his enabler, I guess, the yin to his yang.
• 6:11
  S1: Is there an equivalent on the new show?
• 6:13
  S3: So there's no co-host, there's just Kyle. But we do
• 6:17
  S3: have two newsreaders, the first being Brooklyn Ross, who moved
• 6:20
  S3: across from Arn with Sandilands. And then there's also Mary Madigan,
• 6:25
  S3: who is a cultural reporter for News Corp's news.com.au. And
• 6:30
  S3: she definitely was bouncing off Kyle a lot. And Kyle
• 6:34
  S3: was asking her very provocative questions, very sexualised questions as well,
• 6:38
  S3: that she looked and said she was uncomfortable answering at
• 6:42
  S3: multiple times. But Madigan seemed to push Kyle into, I guess,
• 6:48
  S3: different topics and was acting as that kind of like
• 6:50
  S3: segue almost more than, I think, entirely enabling his famous
• 6:56
  S3: radio behaviour on air shenanigans.
• 7:05
  S1: After the break.
• 7:07
  S6: You've got to go out and you've got to talk
• 7:08
  S6: to the mainstream. So people who aren't particularly engaged in
• 7:11
  S6: politics and who are what, so-called low information voters. And
• 7:14
  S6: you've also got to talk to the people who might
• 7:17
  S6: be thinking about, you know, that 29% of the population
• 7:19
  S6: that's saying that they're going to vote for one nation.
• 7:29
  S1: Jack, welcome back to the podcast.
• 7:30
  S6: Thank you for having me.
• 7:32
  S1: So I guess what's your first take? Like, what did
• 7:34
  S1: you make of the decision by these politicians to appear
• 7:37
  S1: on a show, I guess?
• 7:39
  S6: Pauline Hanson appearing is fairly uncontroversial. Like it's, you know,
• 7:43
  S6: it's not surprising that she would because she has made
• 7:46
  S6: a sort of, I suppose, political decision to embrace so-called
• 7:50
  S6: people who are cancelled. And Kyle Sandilands has been cancelled
• 7:53
  S6: very publicly from his commercial radio contract. And obviously she's
• 7:58
  S6: done that podcast with Tommy Robinson recently. I think there's
• 8:02
  S6: a sort of whole constellation, a whole universe of these
• 8:06
  S6: podcasters now who are, I suppose, a little bit right wing.
• 8:10
  S6: I mean, Kyle Sandilands is not a particularly sort of
• 8:12
  S6: specifically political person, but he's just very, I would say,
• 8:16
  S6: reactionary and sort of vulgarian in his direction. And, you know,
• 8:21
  S6: obviously he's had a lot of public controversies, most recently
• 8:24
  S6: leading to his sacking. So yeah, it's unsurprising that Pauline
• 8:28
  S6: Hanson would go on. And Chris Minns, I mean, he's
• 8:31
  S6: a much more conventional and I suppose, small c conservative politician,
• 8:35
  S6: but he always went on Kyle Sandilands show, I think,
• 8:38
  S6: and he does a lot of commercial radio. And I
• 8:40
  S6: think his media strategy seems to be to sort of
• 8:43
  S6: make friends with everybody and just try to sort of
• 8:45
  S6: project his moderate, reasonable personality and policies and, and hope
• 8:50
  S6: that carries the day.
• 8:51
  S1: And so Sandilands joked about having the prime minister, Anthony Albanese,
• 8:55
  S1: on his show. He said that he was supposed to
• 8:57
  S1: call into the show. I'm not sure how serious that is.
• 8:59
  S1: Now we know that the two have a relationship. The
• 9:02
  S1: Prime Minister attended Kyle Sandilands wedding and I believe he
• 9:05
  S1: called Kyle after he lost his job, I think around
• 9:09
  S1: budget time. So it would have been a busy time
• 9:10
  S1: for the Prime Minister, and I believe he called him
• 9:12
  S1: to console him. What do you think the chances are?
• 9:15
  S1: I know you don't have a crystal ball, but that
• 9:17
  S1: the Prime Minister would actually appear on this show.
• 9:20
  S6: I mean, I guess they're reasonably high again. I think
• 9:23
  S6: Anthony Albanese, as you say, they they have a friendship,
• 9:26
  S6: as much as we can tell. Anthony Albanese and his
• 9:29
  S6: partner were guests at Kyle Sandilands wedding, which I mean,
• 9:33
  S6: I don't know, celebrity weddings seem to follow a different
• 9:35
  S6: set of kind of etiquette rules. And they seem to
• 9:38
  S6: invite a lot of people that you and I probably
• 9:40
  S6: wouldn't consider close friends, but still, you know, to be
• 9:43
  S6: at someone's wedding, I suppose, is a sacred thing. And yeah,
• 9:47
  S6: so they're friends. And I mean, Anthony Albanese as prime minister,
• 9:52
  S6: you know, he's a situation in the polls is not fantastic.
• 9:55
  S6: I think the Newspoll that was out on Monday morning
• 9:58
  S6: showed That he is neck and neck with one nation
• 10:01
  S6: in terms of Labor's primary vote. So they're both on
• 10:03
  S6: 29 and his own approval rating is sort of sinking
• 10:06
  S6: compared to what it used to be. So he needs
• 10:08
  S6: to reach out and touch as many audiences as he
• 10:11
  S6: possibly can. And as we know, the mainstream media doesn't
• 10:14
  S6: have the reach that it used to. So it makes
• 10:16
  S6: sense that politicians want to go on podcasts, particularly podcasts.
• 10:20
  S6: Like we don't know how well Kyle Sandilands whole venture
• 10:23
  S6: will go. And actually he doesn't call it a podcast.
• 10:25
  S6: He said podcasts are for losers. It's actually a digital,
• 10:29
  S6: a live digital show that you can presumably access as
• 10:31
  S6: a podcast later if you want to catch up on it.
• 10:34
  S6: But I don't see why Anthony Albanese wouldn't go on it.
• 10:36
  S6: The only reason would be, you know, that he's recently
• 10:39
  S6: sort of gotten into a little bit of trouble with podcasts,
• 10:45
  S6: controversial podcasts, so he might want to steer clear for
• 10:47
  S6: a while.
• 10:48
  S1: Are we talking here about his off the cuff remarks
• 10:50
  S1: about the Japanese prime minister's melons? This is what we're
• 10:53
  S1: talking about.
• 10:54
  S6: Yeah, yeah. Although if you go back and listen to
• 10:56
  S6: that podcast, he didn't actually he wasn't the one who
• 10:59
  S6: sort of made the ripe old joke. It was the podcaster, uh,
• 11:03
  S6: whose name actually just escapes me right now. But her
• 11:05
  S6: podcast is called Bush Deep. But it was certainly not
• 11:08
  S6: a particularly gracious joke to make about what he's actually
• 11:10
  S6: apparently a very revered sort of gracious gift to give someone,
• 11:14
  S6: which is these rare melons in Japan.
• 11:17
  S1: Do you think that Albanese would perhaps get some political blowback, though, because,
• 11:21
  S1: of course, much of his constituents, of course, MPs in labor,
• 11:25
  S1: many of their electorates, are very multicultural. And Kyle Sandilands
• 11:30
  S1: has a history of making racist comments, discriminatory comments. Do
• 11:34
  S1: you think that for him appearing on that show, I
• 11:36
  S1: realize what you're saying is, is so true. He is
• 11:38
  S1: lagging in the polls. His ratings are not good right now.
• 11:40
  S1: But would that lead to potentially some blowback or do
• 11:43
  S1: people just not care?
• 11:44
  S6: I think only if he says something silly like he
• 11:46
  S6: did on that Bush Deep podcast. So, I mean, nobody,
• 11:50
  S6: you know, in the mainstream and certainly the mainstream media
• 11:53
  S6: would never have known or cared about that podcast. Like
• 11:55
  S6: I've never heard of it. I'm in my own little
• 11:58
  S6: media silo. you're probably in your own little media silo.
• 12:01
  S6: Like we just sort of exist and consume what we consume.
• 12:04
  S6: And this was something sort of well outside our own
• 12:07
  S6: personal algorithms, if you like. But we heard about it
• 12:10
  S6: because it was reported in the mainstream media, like in
• 12:12
  S6: newspapers like The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. And
• 12:14
  S6: then it becomes sort of a bigger deal. So Kyle
• 12:16
  S6: Sandilands is super high profile. And I think at the moment,
• 12:19
  S6: because he's trying to establish this digital, what is it,
• 12:22
  S6: a live digital show? It's definitely not a podcast. No,
• 12:25
  S6: he's trying to he's trying to establish that. So I
• 12:27
  S6: think anything he does at the moment will probably be reported.
• 12:30
  S6: And if Anthony Albanese goes on, it will probably be reported.
• 12:33
  S6: I guess the question is whether or not Anthony Albanese
• 12:36
  S6: could go on and hold the line and not bite
• 12:38
  S6: when Carl Sandilands inevitably tries to draw him into controversial territory.
• 12:43
  S6: Whether that's sort of vulgar sexual stuff, which Kyle Sandilands
• 12:46
  S6: really loves to do in the manner of like a
• 12:49
  S6: sort of 13 year old boy who's completely debased, or
• 12:53
  S6: if it's something more to do with kind of, I
• 12:56
  S6: don't know, race, I suppose, or anything like that, which
• 13:00
  S6: is a difficult subject at the moment. I'd be very
• 13:02
  S6: surprised if Anthony Albanese got himself into trouble in that arena. So,
• 13:06
  S6: I mean, he would he could go on, but he
• 13:07
  S6: would just have to be very careful about what he said,
• 13:09
  S6: I suppose.
• 13:10
  S1: And I wanted to ask you a question about this phenomenon.
• 13:12
  S1: I guess generally with regards to politicians choosing to appear
• 13:15
  S1: on platforms led by people who have, you know, perhaps
• 13:17
  S1: been vocally racist or discriminatory in the past. And in particular,
• 13:21
  S1: when politicians go on these shows and their politics do
• 13:24
  S1: not align. Like there's obviously an argument for them to
• 13:27
  S1: go on and plead their, you know, more tolerant, perhaps
• 13:29
  S1: case to a wider audience. But then does it legitimise,
• 13:32
  S1: I guess, those racist or discriminatory platforms, like what's your
• 13:35
  S1: take on it more broadly, or do you think it
• 13:37
  S1: really depends on a case by case basis?
• 13:39
  S6: I mean, it's very difficult, isn't it? Because I think
• 13:41
  S6: someone like Anthony Albanese and Chris Minns actually, I think
• 13:45
  S6: they would probably say that there's no point just talking
• 13:48
  S6: to your tribe. There's no point just talking to the
• 13:51
  S6: people who are more likely to agree with you, the
• 13:53
  S6: sort of, you know, the right thinking people who read
• 13:56
  S6: The Sydney Morning Herald or who listen to the A, B,
• 13:58
  S6: C and whose media diet consists of, you know, sort
• 14:02
  S6: of progressive, sort of small l liberal organizations that are
• 14:07
  S6: more likely to agree with them. You've got to go
• 14:09
  S6: out and you've got to talk to the mainstream. So
• 14:11
  S6: people who aren't particularly engaged in politics and who are what,
• 14:14
  S6: so-called low information voters. And you've also got to talk
• 14:17
  S6: to the people who might be thinking about, you know,
• 14:19
  S6: that 29% of the population that's saying that they're going
• 14:21
  S6: to vote for one nation, and you're not going to
• 14:23
  S6: probably encounter them in the pages of The Sydney Morning
• 14:26
  S6: Herald or on the ABC. So I get that. And also,
• 14:30
  S6: you know, the more you sort of start counselling people
• 14:33
  S6: in terms of who the people that you speak to,
• 14:36
  S6: the smaller your audience. And also, I suppose the more
• 14:39
  S6: narrow your message. Like if you're a prime minister or premier,
• 14:41
  S6: you're governing for everyone, even the people that disagree with you. Right.
• 14:44
  S6: And so, and if, if you are a seasoned political
• 14:47
  S6: operator like those two are, you should be able to
• 14:50
  S6: hold your own in any sort of media environment. So,
• 14:53
  S6: I mean, I'm a very pro freedom of the press
• 14:55
  S6: and freedom of expression person. So I'm sort of loath
• 14:58
  S6: to think that you should cancel or you should boycott
• 15:02
  S6: certain people. You know, it's an individual choice. I mean
• 15:05
  S6: Kyle Sandilands yeah, I mean, I wouldn't go on his show,
• 15:10
  S6: but I'm very unlikely to be asked on his show. Um,
• 15:14
  S6: and that would be more for reasons of just his
• 15:16
  S6: vulgarity and the absolute sort of what I would say,
• 15:19
  S6: the stupidity of his broadcasting, quite frankly. But I suppose
• 15:23
  S6: you can't afford to be that sort of, I don't know,
• 15:25
  S6: snobby if you're Prime Minister or premier.
• 15:28
  S1: Yeah. I love that point you make that, you know,
• 15:30
  S1: if you believe in the strength of your arguments, you
• 15:32
  S1: should be able to make them anywhere. And maybe it's
• 15:33
  S1: a great test case for, well, how strong are your arguments?
• 15:37
  S6: Yeah, exactly. And I don't think like, you know, if
• 15:39
  S6: the Prime Minister is going to go on Kyle Sandilands,
• 15:41
  S6: he's not going to get a really difficult interview in
• 15:44
  S6: the sense of, you know, Kyle Sandilands not going to
• 15:46
  S6: push him on, you know, on the finer points of
• 15:49
  S6: his immigration policy or his gambling policy. It's just going
• 15:53
  S6: to be more vibe space. The traps for for an
• 15:55
  S6: interview like that are entirely different than they would be
• 15:57
  S6: for an interview with, you know, Peter Hartcher of The
• 15:59
  S6: Sydney Morning Herald or, you know, Sarah Ferguson on 730.
• 16:03
  S1: Or Jack Maley.
• 16:04
  S6: Yeah. That's right. Well, we have had him on our podcast.
• 16:06
  S6: And I think Anthony Albanese makes a virtue actually, of
• 16:09
  S6: making himself very available. And I think that was the
• 16:12
  S6: other side of that silly podcast. You did the Bush
• 16:16
  S6: Deep podcast, is he? He likes to say yes to
• 16:19
  S6: as many media requests as he can, which is, you know,
• 16:23
  S6: a good instinct as a prime minister, right? Like to
• 16:25
  S6: be as open and available as possible. But yeah, it backfired,
• 16:29
  S6: I would say, in that situation.
• 16:36
  S7: Well, Jack, thanks for your take. I love hearing your
• 16:38
  S7: takes on everything. So thanks for that.
• 16:40
  S6: Thank you for having me.
• 16:42
  S7: Until next time.
• 16:53
  S1: In other news, today, an industry first Australian study has
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