Advertisers who did not want to be associated with the Kyle and Jackie O Show cost the radio company more than $26 million in lost revenue last year.

ARN chief executive Michael Stephenson made the revelation during a presentation to shareholders at the company’s AGM on Thursday.

He said ARN took a $32 million hit to its revenue in 2025 — $26.4 million of it from advertisers that wanted to distance themselves from the now-axed radio show, hosted by Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.

“What has been obvious in recent times is that both consumer and advertiser expectations have changed,” he told shareholders on Thursday.

“Over the period, there were a number of advertisers who had concerns about the safety, or the brand safety, of some of our content, and as a result, it impacted our revenues through the period.”

Stephenson said that ARN’s revenue in metro areas declined by $28 million — mostly because of the Kyle and Jackie O Show.

“Six million dollars can be attributed to a tough advertising market, the remaining $22 million is related to clients who had chosen not to advertise with ARN because of issues relating to brand safety,” he said.

“This issue also impacted regional revenues. Regional revenues declined by $5.3million for the period with $4.4million coming predominately from national advertisers who had chosen not to advertise with ARN because of concerns with brand safety.”

The Kyle and Jackie O Show was known for its explicit content, including occasional discussions of sex acts, masturbation and pornography, which had drawn calls to boycott the show from a grassroots activist group that accused it of normalising “violent misogyny”.

ARN Media sensationally terminated the contracts of both Henderson and Sandilands after an on-air blow-up between the pair in February, during which he told her she was “off with the fairies” and “almost unworkable” because of her interest in astrology.

Following the show’s axing in March, Stephenson said the company expected to regain a “significant percentage” of the $26 million that was lost over brand issues.

The Kyle and Jackie O Show had repeatedly flouted decency provisions in the commercial radio code of practice and made headlines for their smutty content.

In 2025, ARN Media was found to have made nine breaches of decency provisions including:

• Two episodes of a guessing game where audio clips of male and female staff members urinating were aired, with hosts guessing which audio belonged to which staff member. Both episodes included comments about the genitals of participants, and in the female staff member episode, graphic comments about menstruation and oral sex;
• A game where a contestant provided an offensive description of a sexual position
• A segment which contained lewd discussions about masturbation and pornography websites.

Then in March, the Australian Communications and Media Authority slapped further licence conditions on ARN Media that will run for five years.

Stephenson addressed the top-rated show’s implosion during the AGM and said the company was committed to fighting lawsuits filed by both Sandilands and Henderson.

Both presenters are suing ARN separately for breaches of their respective contracts, with Henderson claiming she should not have been fired just for refusing to work with Sandilands.

ARN has countersued Sandilands and Henderson for alleged loss of advertising revenue through their sacking.

“As shareholders are aware, an incident occurred on air between Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson on February 20, 2026. Following that incident, Ms Henderson took a leave of absence, during which she received the full support and care of management,” he stated.

“On February 26, 2026, Ms Henderson advised that she could not ‘continue to work with Mr Sandilands’ and that ‘direct contact with Mr Sandilands [was] now untenable’.

“The company considered this a repudiation of her contract, on the basis that it was not possible for her to perform her core contractual requirement to deliver the Kyle and Jackie O Show and, as a result, her contract was terminated.

“The company engaged with Ms Henderson about the possibility of an alternative show on the ARN network, however an agreement was never reached.

“The company also formed the view that Mr Sandilands’ conduct on February 20, 2026 amounted to serious misconduct. He was given 14 days to remedy; when he failed to do so, his contract was also terminated.

“Mr Sandilands and Ms Henderson have each filed a statement of claim against ARN Media, and we have now filed defences in response to each. ARN Media has also filed cross-claims.

“I would like to assure shareholders that the board is committed to defending these claims and actively pursuing the cross-claims.”