KIIS FM’s Kyle & Jackie O Show is facing an advertiser boycott after a campaign that claims the content on the breakfast program is normalising “violent misogyny”.
High-profile advertisers including AMP, Bendigo Bank, Flight Centre and Australian Super have confirmed to Guardian Australia that they have stopped or are reviewing their advertising with the show.
The grassroots activist group Mad Fucking Witches launched a community campaign targeting the show’s co-host Kyle Sandilands in May, to coincide with the expansion of the top-rating Sydney program into Melbourne.
MFW says many companies have withdrawn advertising from the show because it doesn’t align with their corporate values – although some of these withdrawals are understood to be coincidental.
Sandilands’ co-host, Jackie Henderson, is not the campaign’s focus. Last year the pair signed a 10-year deal with KIIS FM’s owner, ARN Media, worth an estimated $200m.
Last month the station aired comments from a caller who said his favourite sexual position was a “butcher’s wheelbarrow” – holding a woman’s arms from behind like a wheelbarrow, “and then you go to town and just butcher the pussy”.
In an episode that aired this week, Sandilands told Henderson that a man who was not prepared to say he would “smash you anally”, regardless of her political views, was not worth knowing.
Sandilands also referred to Henderson as a “hoe” and an “annoying bitch”.
MFW previously played a role in mobilising community and advertiser backlash against Alan Jones at 2GB after his remarks about the then New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern.
On Tuesday the latest radio ratings from GfK showed The Kyle & Jackie O Show was tanking in the Melbourne market, falling to a share of just 5.2% in July to September. It remains Sydney’s top breakfast show.
MFW’s founder, Jennie Hill, said the group had about 30 volunteers and five part-time workers tracking the program, while its large network of supporters was targeting advertisers supporting Sandilands.
Hill told Guardian Australia that the campaign, run under the #VileKyle hashtag, had been started because the show was validating violence against women, with Sandilands speaking about women “in demeaning and objectifying and sexualised ways”.
“We don’t like seeing ourselves as wowsers or anything like that but the content is so beyond the pale in terms of the violent misogyny, we felt like we had to do it,” Hill said.
ARN’s chief content officer, Duncan Campbell, said this week that the show had been “overly sexualised” as he defended the low ratings performance in Melbourne.
“Kyle’s realised that, and we’ve made the change there, which is a positive,” Campbell told Radio Today. “The graphic sexual content’s gone. But it will take time for the audience to pick up on that perceptually and change.”
Campbell said the show had been toned down about four weeks ago but the changes would not lead to “a sanitised show”.
In correspondence sent to MFW campaigners, AMP said sexualised comments from Sandilands were “behaviour … not aligned with our values”.
An AMP spokesperson told the Guardian: “We are working with our media agency to review our advertising arrangements with the program.”
In response to a selection of comments sent by MFW to Flight Centre, a spokesperson said: “These things do not align with our values, so we have already taken action on this.”
The company told Guardian Australia that it regularly sponsors traffic reports and this content appears across a range of stations, including the KIIS network.
“We are currently working with our media agency to review the advertising schedule to ensure placements reach our desired audience through programming that aligns with our values,” the spokesperson said.
A letter from Bendigo Bank from mid-September sent to an MFW campaigner said the bank had “discontinued advertising on this program”.
“Bendigo and Adelaide Bank prides itself on its commitment to conduct business, including our advertising and media partnerships respectfully, ethically and to the highest possible standard,” the letter said.
A spokesperson for Australian Super confirmed it was no longer advertising on the show but made no comment about the MFW campaign.
Hill said MFW’s tracking suggested that the number of advertisers had fallen from more than 100 to about 70 since the campaign began.
An ARN Media spokesperson told the Guardian that “listening to Kylie & Jackie O is a choice millions of Australians make”.
“While we accept the show does not appeal to everyone, it’s the nation’s most successful breakfast program with an audience in excess of 1.5 million people,” the spokesperson said. “The show regularly takes on feedback from its audience.”
The network did not comment on the claimed drop in advertiser numbers but said it had “a strong and stable advertiser base who continue to get high-quality results”.
Do you know more? Contact sarah.martin@theguardian.com
