Kyle Sandilands spent the last stretch of his first morning back on air trying to get Anthony Albanese on the phone, and when the Prime Minister finally picked up, he hung up without saying a word. Senator Pauline Hanson rang in, stayed on the line for one of the longest interviews of the morning, and was singled out by Sandilands as the politician who stood by him when KIIS FM showed him the door.
Kyle Sandilands Live, the subscription show Sandilands owns outright, went to air for the first time on Monday from his new Sydney studio, running 6am to 10am with nobody between him and the microphone.
Introducing Hanson's call, Sandilands ran through the political leaders who reached out after KIIS FM sacked him in February, then set her apart from all of them.
"The prime minister did, and the premier did. But Pauline, who I didn't know well, no one really could have been more supportive from someone outside of my own family than Pauline Hanson," he said.
The Prime Minister was due to join the first show. "He's calling in at some point when he's figured out some world shit," a producer said on air when asked where he was. The call never came, so late in the show Sandilands pulled out his phone and dialled the number himself, with the handset held up so listeners could hear it ring.
He rang the wrong Prime Minister first. The call went to Scott Morrison's voicemail, prompting a cry of "that's the wrong PM!" before Sandilands killed the call without leaving a message. He then tried the correct number while a producer told him twice that "he's not gonna answer your call". "I'm ringing him anyway," Sandilands said. The phone rang briefly, the studio sat through a few seconds of silence, and then the line from Albanese's end simply went dead.
"Well, I won't be having sex with him ever again," Sandilands joked. "He answered (the phone), then he hung up."
Albanese was billed for the debut and never said a word on it.
The silence stood out because Labor's other leader had already been in the building. NSW Premier Chris Minns turned up in person around 7am with a pair of oversized gold scissors and cut a ribbon to open the studio. He laughed along as Sandilands retold the story of mistaking him, rugged up in a beanie at a Blue Mountains ice cream shop, for "a meth head". Minns took it in good humour, calling himself "a handsome meth head".
Hanson told Kyle's audience the country is being divided, and Kyle agreed
Hanson's call came around 2 hours in, with Sandilands holding his iPhone to the microphone on speaker. He greeted her as Aunty Pauline, a nickname she said she likes because it's "a form of respect", and told the story of driving her to the airport in his Rolls-Royce after she declined taxpayer funded transport.
"I was so impressed. I threw her bag in the back of the Rolls. I said, 'Jump in the Rolls, Auntie Pauline, I'll take you to the airport,'" Sandilands told listeners.
The senator used the call to speak directly to his audience.
"If all your fantastic listeners out there, if you have any common sense about you, wake up to yourselves and understand what's going on here, the division that's happening in this country. I went up to Mount Isa on the streets there. I had Aboriginals coming up to me, shaking my hand, saying, 'I love you, mate. Keep going.'"
She called Sandilands a "decent" and "fantastic bloke" who has been upfront about his views, said criticism from the likes of Kevin Rudd showed "they see us as a threat, that's why they have to put us down", and brushed off the school walkouts organised against One Nation with "kids are there to learn".
Sandilands returned the compliment, telling listeners Hanson is "not a racist" and casting her as the normal one in the argument. Comedian Dave Hughes, dialling in near the end of the show as its self styled political commentator, spent his segment talking with Sandilands about their shared admiration for the senator.
None of the warmth was new, as Sandilands revealed in June during his first interview after the axing that he'd spent part of his time off working with Hanson and One Nation on "getting their messaging across, which I think has been well received". He called the senator "one of my favourite people now", said he'd introduced her to "upper society types" who had taken an interest in her message, and declared he was "loving the orange wave".
Hanson's office confirmed at the time that the pair had each other's numbers and had been in contact. Monday's call was the friendship's first outing on Sandilands' own platform, the one he built after settling with ARN for $12 million and walking away from commercial radio altogether.
The $99 subscription means no network can sack him again
KS Live charges $99 a year, paid up front, with no monthly option and no free trial, a structure that means everyone who tuned in on day one had already paid for a full year of it.
Sandilands owns 100% of the venture and says he has enough banked to run it for 3 years. He wouldn't give a subscriber count, though he suggested the show is closing in on 100,000. Once it gets past that mark he's promised to give away a car every month, and at 200,000 subscribers, where he says the business would be turning $20 million a year in profit, a house every year.
The whole operation was stood up in weeks. Newsreader Brooklyn Ross, who walked out of ARN to join the venture days before launch, put it plainly on air: "You put together a radio station in one month."
ARN owns no part of the company, but what the settlement gives the network is a cut of the money instead: 19.1% of any profit above the first $3 million Sandilands makes each year. It also owes him $1.5 million in advertising across its own platforms, which leaves the company that sacked him paying to promote his next act.
Sandilands, for his part, described KIIS's replacement program on air as "the Temu version of The Kyle & Jackie O Show". KS Live is back every weekday morning, and the launch episode is already up for subscribers as a replay running to 3 hours and 22 minutes.
