The Case Of
Original podcast
Kyle Sandilands may have been taken off air, but he's still making news — this time, in court.
3,975 words · 7 speakers
Hi, it's Hamish McDonald here. I'm a journalist and I've been investigating miss and disinformation. If you're worried that something you're seeing, reading or hearing from an ABC host might be miss or disinformation, especially if it announces an emergency or an investment opportunity, then try stopping and searching for other pieces of their reporting on the same topic on ABC brand websites and broadcast channels to verify its accuracy. If you want to join me interrogating the dark world of disinformation, stream The Matter of Fact now on ABC iView.
ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
Kyle Sandilands wasn't on a six-figure pay packet. He wasn't on seven. He wasn't even on eight. He was on a nine-figure deal, $100 million over 10 years. And now he's been taken off air, he's taking his former employer to court. I'm Stephen Stockwell, welcome to a special episode of The Case Of.
From a fight on air with his co-host to a fight in court with his employer.
Be aware of what's really going on.
I am Kyle, I totally am offended by you saying something like that.
Too bad if you are.
Kyle Sandilands claims ARN's termination of his $100 million contract is invalid.
I just want to get back either to work or get back early to get a family, got mortgages to pay like everyone else.
Civil court matters can be pretty dry, but when you've got a shock jock like Kyle Sandilands taking the radio station he used to work for into the federal court, we couldn't resist the opportunity to find out how many tens of millions of dollars are at stake. To get us into this, we are joined by Jamie McKinnon, the ABC's court reporter in Sydney, who was at the hearing on Friday. Jamie, welcome to The Case Of.
Hi, Stocky.
If you've been living under a rock, Kyle Sandilands is one of the highest-paid radio personalities in the country. And up until very recently, he was hosting a show with Jacky O on Kiss FM, a hugely popular radio show in Sydney, but that has ended very abruptly and he's now in a legal fight with his former employer. Jamie, what is going on here?
Well, Kyle Sanderland's contract was terminated earlier this month and that was after he had this on-air fight, this bust-up with his former co-host at Kiss FM, Jackie Henderson. That fight happened in February and he accused her during that discussion of being off with the fairies and said she was too fixated on horoscopes. And during their discussion, she appeared to be pretty offended by that. So it went on for, you know, 15 or 20 minutes. Now, ARN, his employer, gave him two weeks to remedy a situation where Henderson no longer was able to work with Kyle Sanderland. And they have claimed that this amounted to serious misconduct, this fight they had on air, and it was also a breach of his contract and they terminated the contract because of that. So at that
point, it seemed like this whole saga was likely going to end up in court and that's exactly where we've ended up, in the federal court.
Yeah, right. Do we know what Kyle Sanderland is asking for here? Does he want his job back? Does he want the rest of his contract pad out? Because I think he's only a couple of years into this $100 million deal. What's he going for in court?
Yeah, well, it kind of depends on which side you ask. On Friday, Kyle Sanderland's counsel got up and said his primary objective is to get back on the air, get back with his audience. And he said, in fact, he's ready to turn up on Monday and start doing the show again. But from the other side of things, the ARN's counsel got up and said, well, the chances of that happening are pretty small. If you look at the legal authorities and previous cases on things like this. And so what in substance this case is about, according to ARN, is a claim for a debt. The barrister for ARN said what he wants is his $10 million a year for the next eight and a half or nine years.
Yeah, right. Okay. And this has all come about because he basically had a fight with Jackie O on-air and she was offended and upset by the way that went. And he wasn't able to remedy that. He wasn't able to kind of like repair the relationship and the whole thing kind of got thrown out. Is that about right?
Yeah, so the the main question of this case seems to be, uh, what constitutes serious misconduct? If you ask ARN, they'll say that, uh, they were justified in terminating the contract because that fight was at a level of being serious misconduct. Kyle Sandilands denies that. And in fact, last week, he told us outside court that this was not the first time they'd had an on-air fight, and they usually got over it pretty quickly. And he said, this seems to have turned into a bit of a circus. And it seemed on the day that he he said he didn't do anything differently to what he's done for the past 20 or 25 years. And he thought it was something that was just going to, uh, to pass pretty quickly, and they could just get on with the show and and things would cruise along. So he seemed,
from the way he was talking, pretty surprised at, uh, the level this got to and and the way the fight turned out.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not a regular listener to to Kiss FM, but my broad understanding of the Kyle and Jackie O show is that it is almost exclusively kind of fights with each other or fights with listeners and, you know, that kind of that kind of style of commercial, you know, music talkback radio. So it's really interesting to see where this has come to. And I think the contract clauses in this are really interesting because, you know, looking through Kyle's contract, he's been brought on at at ARN, at Kiss, to engage in robust kind of conversation, basically. Is the argument here that he hasn't breached his contract because it has such broad provisions to to kind of get him to, I guess, in inverted commas, speak his mind?
Yeah, from what's happened so far and what we know about the claim that he's making in the federal court, that seems to be at least part of the argument, uh, that, uh, ARN kind of knew what they were going to get with him. So they they did make a point on Friday of saying that he was hired to have those kind of robust discussions. Uh, and his lawyer got up and said, well, if that's what he was hired to do, if that's part of the contract, and and he said that's something that ARN, quote, desired from Kyle Sandilands, then how could it possibly be considered misconduct when he has those kind of conversations? Um, but the other part of the argument that was interesting that came up on Friday was this, uh, thing in the contract about the radio dump button. Now, I know that you're probably very familiar
With the idea of a dump button, Stocky, but for people who maybe aren't as much of a radio and podcast nerd, how would we explain that?
So a dump button, this is really interesting and this kind of melted my mind for a bit when I was doing live radio, but basically the show is run on like a, you know, anywhere from a 10 to 30 second delay and the producer is listening on that like pre-delayed version. And if something happens that is in breach of standards or is likely to get them in trouble, usually it's used for for kind of defamation. If someone says something defamatory, you hit the dump button and that brings the time up to the current time. So you kind of cut out whatever was said in the last 15 to 20 seconds. So it's this sort of like safety buffer for anything that might be defamatory or problematic on air.
Yeah, so that seems to be part of what Kyle Sanderland's lawyers are going to argue. The dump button apparently was mentioned in his contract. So his counsel, Scott Robertson S E, said they'll partly rely in this case on a clause in the agreement that said, as a general rule, if something was put to air and nobody at ARN pressed the dump button, then Kyle Sanderland's had a kind of immunity. Now, the way that applies in practice is going to be pretty interesting to see how that unfolds and how ARN will respond to it. We haven't got to the point yet where they've responded in detail because it's pretty early days in this case. But when we get into talking about individual clauses, that's really getting quite deep into interpreting the contract, examining individual clauses
and also talking about and arguing about how that was meant to apply in practice and whether it was applied the right way or not.
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, the contract doesn't just have two clauses that, you know, solely make Kyle Sanderland's in this situation look pretty safe. There's probably 60 to 70 other clauses in this. The contract is huge. What else were they talking through in this hearing on Friday? Is this really what it was, just in the nitty gritty on these clauses?
Yeah, so Friday was what's called a case management hearing and that's basically the first time it comes before a judge. So usually those sort of listings are very administrative. They're about ironing out time tables and deadlines for filing different things for both sides. And they can be pretty short or they can expose a little bit of more detail about the case, depending on how much has it been. Agreed to by each side's lawyers before. So this was relatively like typical, I guess, in the scheme of case management hearings. It went for like forty minutes or something. But we did learn a little bit more about a broad overview of the case and his lawyer, Mr Robertson, was speaking pretty broadly and saying, look, this is what I think it boils
down to, this twenty minute period on air, and whether or not that constitutes serious misconduct for the purposes of a broadcast agreement, basically.
Yeah, right. And was there any conversation about whether or not Jackie O's claim of feeling unsafe following this is what makes this kind of different to the previous arguments or discussions they'd had?
No, that hasn't really come up a lot, but this is pretty early days in this case. So it might form part of it down the track, but we're pretty early on. So I don't think ARN has had a proper chance to look at what they're dealing with and then work out how to respond to it. And that was why they actually pushed back against this request from Sandy Land's lawyers to fast track the case. And they were saying, look, he really wants to get back to work. They want it sped up and put in the fast lane, so to speak. But ARN's lawyer was saying they want to do this properly. There's a lot of money involved and they need time to look through everything and then work out how to reply.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, as you were talking about, you know, the whole thing seems to be Carl Sandilands wanting to get back on the radio. Did he give any insight into why he wants to get back to work at all?
Yeah. So when he was on the way into court and then again afterwards, he spoke to us pretty briefly and said, look, I've got a family to support. I've got a mortgage. So it was, he was sort of framing himself as, you know, an everyday sort of person that he, you know, has these financial obligations and just like everyone else wants to get back to work. He just thinks the whole thing has become a bit of a circus, like he told us. And he seems to be quite confused about how it has sort of snowballed from something that, according to him, had happened many times before. But apparently this one was somehow different and different to a level where ARN has decided to take this action.
I mean, it does sound a lot like he misses being on radio to the point where, you know, he was kind of pretty happy chatting to people outside of the outside of the court when he was when he was talking to you as well.
Yeah, so there was this small group of people who I'm not sure whether they were there for their own separate court case or whether they turned up just for Kyle Sandilands, but there was maybe half a dozen people who were voicing concerns about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine and the media's role in encouraging people to get vaccinated back when we're in sort of COVID-19 times. And they were very outspoken. While we were waiting for Kyle to come out, actually, one of them accused me of working for the CIA. So they were very outspoken. Just for the record, I don't work for the CIA and I'm not sure what they were basing that on. But they seemed very intent on giving Kyle Sandilands a piece of their mind when he showed up as well.
Initially, he came out and he was pretty taken aback because they were yelling questions and being pretty in his face about this. And and he sort of said, who are you? And turned around and then walked in the other direction. But as they kept on heckling and yelling more questions when the media was speaking to Kyle Sandilands, he turned to them and he said, look, I'm not ignoring you. I will come and talk about the vaccines, but just give me a moment to speak to the media. And then to his credit, he did. Once he'd answered a few questions from journos, he went over and had a bit of a conversation with them. And then he told us after he'd had that discussion that he was engaging with those people, basically because that's what he'd normally be doing on the radio and he's obviously not doing that at the moment. So it was this bizarre kind of in-person, quite colourful interaction
that it was the kind of thing that you'd normally find on, say, an FM breakfast radio show. But he was doing it in person as opposed to sitting behind a microphone.
Yeah, look, you know, it's an audience of, you know, half a dozen people, probably doesn't match the audience of hundreds of thousands he has each morning. But, you know, you've got to get it from somewhere, I suppose. Jamie, it doesn't sound like Kyle Sandilands will be back on the radio anytime soon. You know, we've got his barrister saying, he's ready to go back. He wants to go back. Let's get this thing sorted out really quickly. You've got our end on the other side saying, look, this is big. We do need to kind of work through this. Do we have any idea when this is going to be back in court? When they're going to start hashing this out and getting into, you know, what what's actually going to, you know, working towards some kind of resolution?
Yeah, we have a rough timeline. So we're really at the starting line here. Justice Angus Stewart has given timetables and due dates for both sides to file different kinds of legal material. And he's set another of these administrative type listings for next month. And so that'll be another chance for the court to check in with both parties, see how things are going, see if there's been any movement and check in as well about whether or not we are headed towards a full-on hearing or a trial.
Yeah, all right. And what are the options here? Is it a trial? Is it just a hearing between these two? I've actually just realised I have no idea how the federal court works.
Yeah, it'll be very similar to a sort of trial or a hearing. We don't know whether we're going to get to that point yet, but the judge has provisionally reserved five days of hearings in June if we get to that point, because the federal court's pretty busy. And so I think I see a lot when cases have a chance to grab hearing dates, they usually get them pretty quickly and sort of put them on reserve if they can, in case they do end up needing them. We don't know whether we're going to get to that point or not, but it's sort of there reserved for them if we get to that point.
And Jamie, federal court, is this something that a jury will sit and hear, or is this a judge-only scenario?
No, it'll be a judge-only situation. So it's Justice Angus Stewart has been allocated this case, but no jury in this matter. I think there are some types of civil cases that can have juries, but they are quite rare. So this one will just be a judge alone.
Great, thank you, Jamie. I was actually reading an analysis piece by Lisa Als last week on the ABC. I'll put this in the show notes of this episode, as you can have read as well. And Jamie, your coverage from the hearing on Friday too, so people can follow along there. In Lisa Als's article, she mentioned that this could be a play to extract a settlement for our end from Carl Sandilands. Now, I mean, we probably shouldn't speculate on what Carl Sandilands's plans are here, but Jamie, you've been covering courts for years. Is that something that you do see happen every now and then?
Yeah, I think, speaking broadly at least, I'm sure that the prospect of, you know, potentially going through the process of discovery certainly does factor into one's side's or another's decision to either make a case or respond to one. Now, like you said, Stocky, we can't read Kyle Sandlerland's mind, all the minds of his lawyers, so we don't know exactly what the strategy here is. But people should definitely read that piece by Lee, it's fantastic. She wrote that there is this question doing the rounds at the moment in media and legal type circles. People are asking, is he really going to sue and is he going to take on the risks that come with that? Or is this some kind of aggressive piece of brinkmanship? Outside court, he was asked on Friday whether he's prepared to take this case to a hearing,
and he said, we'll see the court proceedings through to the very end. ARN has one angle, and I have a completely different angle. Now, what he means by the very end, we don't know. People will have to make their own minds up, at least until we see how this plays out, and then we'll know, obviously, what the plan was.
Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, yeah, Lee Sales' analysis piece, you know, looking at Kyle Sandlerland's history, how he's grown up, was a really kind of interesting insight into him. So, yeah, as I mentioned, I'll pop that in the show notes, and you can have a read of that. Jamie, you mentioned the kind of the risks of taking this all the way through, through the process to a full kind of hearing in the federal court. You mentioned discovery as well. I mean, is the risk that if Kyle takes this all the way, there's this kind of, you know, investigation that uncovers even more kind of material or things that might make Kyle Sandlerland look bad, that then gets presented during that process?
Potentially, yeah. But that's what I found interesting from his lawyers, this suggestion that it should be confined to a 20-minute period on air. They said that this is really not the occasion for a royal commission into Kyle Sandlerland's radio career. They seem to want it just confined to that 20-minute period. But ARN's lawyer said this question of whether or not something is serious misconduct is a very fact-rich question, and it will involve what they called a wider review of what happened on February 20, on the day of that argument. So from that, it sounds like ARN- Hasn't had enough time yet to fully consider this claim and how they're going to respond to it. But that could be why they're resisting this request to fast track things. They want
to consider how to proceed. But in federal court cases, they can involve this process of of discovery and being called on by your opposition to produce what they see as relevant. And that is a process that can be damaging, depending on what comes out of it, if if past cases that I've seen are anything to go by. So those are the sort of factors that will all be going into different decisions about, do we make a case? Do we lodge it? Do we sue someone? And then how do we respond to it? And how do we, how do we defend it?
Yep. Yeah, yeah. There's a huge amount yet to play out. Jamie, what's the next step?
Well, we'll come back for that administrative listing I mentioned. It's another case management hearing in April. And we might have an indication then of what movement, if any, there has been between the parties. We also might find out then if the lawyers think they'll still need those hearing dates in June. But for now, I think it's sort of laying where it was laying on on Friday. I don't think Kyle was back on the radio this morning, despite his want, his need, his desire to be there. So we'll have to wait until that next listing in April to find out whether there's been any movement.
Jamie, thank you so much for for joining us on The Case Of and talking through all of this.
Thanks, Toki.
If you have any questions about this for us or any other of the cases that we're following at the moment, you can get in touch, [email protected]. This is one that we will continue to have our eyes on. So if there is something you're curious about, you'd like to ask Jamie, send it through. You're all very familiar with my filing system. So we'll we'll keep it in the back pocket. And if we drag Jamie back on to The Case Of, we'll throw it at him in that episode. And also make sure you grab ABC Listen. So you're at the front of the line for all The Case Of episodes. We're back in your feed on Tuesday with an episode of The Case of the Wheelie Bin Murder.
The Case Of is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. This episode was reported by Jamie McKinnon and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rollinson. This episode was produced on the land of the Gadigal and Wurundjeri people.
Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated