ARN’s Kiis1065 has signed Kyle and Jackie O for another five years as the face and voices of its breakfast show in a deal said to be worth up to $40 million.
The pair, who have fronted breakfast together for 11 years, jumped to ARN from 2Day FM to relaunch the network in 2014 in a massive shake up of on-air talent. Their breakfast show is currently the top rated FM breakfast show with 10.2% of the audience.
Sandilands and Jackie O, who are never far from controversy, are some of the highest paid execs in radio. ARN has not revealed the value of the deal but the SMH puts it at around $40m with that income coming from salaries, revenue share deals and bonuses.
ARN is touting the duo’s success in terms of both ratings and fan engagement, and its commitment to investing in “the best talent” to ensure it can continue to dominate the market.
Tony Kendall, the former Bauer exec who moved to ARN as CEO last year says Kyle and Jackie O have been “integral” to ARN and Kiis’ growth over the last three years and will be “instrumental” to its future success.
He said: "It's not only the radio ratings that Kyle and Jackie dominate. Kyle and Jackie O’s fan engagement extends to a social reach of over two million active followers, more than 1.9 million monthly video streams and 1.5 million monthly unique users on the KIIS website. This is all testament to the deep connection Kyle and Jackie O have with their audiences”.
“ARN is committed to investing in the best talent to build entertainment brands Australians love and, as a multi-platform media company, this five-year deal with Kyle and Jackie is an integral piece of our strategy to broaden the reach of our content.”
Jackie Henderson said Kiis “feels like home” with Sandilands adding that they are with ARN “for the long haul”.
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