ARN hires Stefanovic and McGuire as finances questioned

Kyle Sandilands may have been purged from the KIIS FM airwaves, but his frequent promotion of Karl Stefanovic on his now cancelled radio show is paying dividends for the Today star. News yesterday that ARN has signed Stefanovic and his former Nine colleague, Mr Melbourne Eddie McGuire, to its second radio network, GOLD, was met with some confusion within the radio industry following months of media coverage concerning the ailing state of ARN’s balance sheet. How the radio company can afford to hire television’s highest

paid man when there’s a chance it will still have to hand over $170 million to pay out the contracts of Sandilands and his long-time radio partner Jackie “O” Henderson, both of whom ARN terminated in March, is a mystery to industry veterans given the company’s latest revenue report. In February, ARN confirmed revenue was down $32 million for 2025 and that it was committed to finding $55 million in cuts by 2027. Stefanovic and McGuire hardly look like cuts and won’t come cheap for

what could well be a short-lived experiment. The new program, called The Long Weekend, will be broadcast live from noon to 3pm on Fridays – initially for just five months from June – on broadcast and streaming radio and also via video podcast on Nine streaming platforms 9 Now and Stan. New ARN boss Michael Stephenson says the aim is to bolster the network’s push into short form video on social media and premium cross platform content. The fact that some 80-90 per cent of

ARN revenue still comes from FM radio suggests traditional radio broadcasting must also form part of the broader strategy. In the four months since Mr Stephenson took over from departed KISS FM boss Ciaran Davis – the executive who ambitiously signed Sandilands and Henderson to $100-million contracts – the former TV sales boss has moved decisively and quickly to claw back ad revenue lost to an activist-led advertiser boycott. While his decision to axe the Kyle and Jackie O Breakfast Show has divided radio executives,

listeners, ARN shareholders and media alike, it has ended up being financially beneficial to the media company. With revenue in decline, ARN could simply no longer afford the duo. This pertained not just to their salaries, but also the threat the breakfast show’s often obscene content posed to KIIS FM’s radio licence. The question now is how can it afford McGuire and Stefanovic? As well as not coming cheap – something that must grate with Sandilands and Henderson as the duo push on with their

expensive legal action against ARN for invalid and unfair dismissal, which ARN is defending – these two 50-something conservative white men hardly align with the Kyle and Jackie O show’s audience. Which is why Mr Stephenson has signed the duo to ARN’s second radio network, the classic hits broadcaster GOLD, where there is less pressure to attract young listeners and, as this appointment implies, appeal to a female audience. It’s all about advertisers and show pony men at GOLD now, or so this appointment seems

to confirm. Industry sources suggest the show will be tested on GOLD before it, or some parts of it, are moved to a more regular daytime slot down the line – possibly to KIIS breakfast and maybe as soon as next year. Yesterday’s news, coming from the yet-to-prove-himself Stephenson, seems less about content than about grabbing headlines and bold promotion. Content-wise, the move is akin to a dormant reflex from Mr Stephenson that sees him cannibalise the talent pool at the broadcast company at which

he once worked, Nine. This is, after all, the man who moved the brilliant and ageless Amanda Keller and her irreverent partner Brendan “Jonesy” Jones to the drive slot on Sydney’s GOLD101.7 to make way for expat British broadcaster Christian O’Connell on the breakfast airwaves, something that might arguably be described as a retrograde leap backwards to a post-FM pre-Mulray era – Mulray of course being the legendary, mischievous and quintessentially Australian shock jock Douglas John. Perhaps a promo for the new show might be:

“Welcome back to 1991 folks for the latest iteration of Nine’s long-running – and also long-defunct – Saturday afternoon sports staple Wide World of Sports”. In place of middle-aged Sydney reporter/presenter Ken Sutcliffe is middle-aged Brisbane reporter/presenter Karl Stefanovic. Standing in for beloved middle-aged Tasmanian cricketer and storyteller Max “Tangles” Walker is middle-aged Melburnian and sometime game show host McGuire. As well as talking sports, the duo will also discuss the news. Despite their joint Tuesday statements echoing the sentiment “we’ve been friends for a

long time”, in their combined almost six decades at Nine, Stefanovic and McGuire have never worked together, unless fleetingly, at opposite ends of the day perhaps, on an Olympic broadcast or similar. Have the geniuses programming content at ARN ever wondered why? No chemistry perhaps? Too expensive to bring together? Too boring given Stefanovic has long been seen by some as a McGuire imitator? Or did Nine’s bosses, exclusively men who have a history of being attracted to the styles of those like McGuire and

Stefanovic, determine that a program co-anchored by two rich white blokes jostling to be the alpha male might possibly be a dud? Sure, one that might produce the occasional decent line for a 15 second promo – which is what Mr Stephenson apparently believes short video on social is – but a three-hour program of riveting content? It seems a tall order. GOLD’s ageing listeners will know what to do when their usual Friday afternoon listening of Fleetwood Mac and Ed Sheeran bangers is axed.

They’ll go elsewhere – the women in all likelihood to SmoothFM or a popular streaming service and the men perhaps to Triple M, the radio station ARN tried unsuccessfully to acquire in 2023 along with rival Southern Cross Austereo’s suite of stations and which is now, thanks in part to the Kyle & Jackie O balls-up, experiencing something of a ratings recovery.

ARN, GOLD, Karl Stefanovic, Eddie McGuire, The Long Weekend, Kyle Sandilands, Jackie O Henderson, Michael Stephenson, Ciaran Davis, KIIS FM, revenue down 2025, $170 million payout, $55 million cuts by 2027