Countdown to a showdown: Sandilands and ARN on the clock
Sandilands and Henderson at the ARN upfront in 2025 (Mumbrella)
The dispute between Kyle Sandilands, Jackie Henderson, and ARN is shaping up to be Australia’s second biggest media-legal battle of all time.
The largest remains the C7 pay TV litigation unsuccessfully pursued by Kerry Stokes in which he tried to sue News Ltd, the AFL, the NRL, Channel Ten and Austar for $480m. And that was 20 years ago, when half a billion dollars was a lot of money. This time round a mere $200m is at stake.
We are early in the timeline for the case. It’s worth setting out the key dates.
January 2014: Sandilands and Henderson switch from Southern Cross Austereo’s 2Day FM to launch ARN’s Kiis FM in a coup engineered by CEO Ciaran Davis. It kicks off a decade of dominance of the Sydney FM radio market.
November 2023: Using an offer from SCA to create competitive tension, the pair extract a new ten-year deal with ARN, reportedly worth $200m across the decade. A key part of the business plan is to take the show national.
April 2024: The Kyle & Jackie O Show extends to Melbourne. But ousted Kiis presenters Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips, already on air for three months, take their Melbourne audience with them.
January 2025: The new deal begins, due to run until the end of 2034.
October 2025: Ciaran Davis exits as ARN’s CEO and is replaced by former Nine sales boss Michael Stephenson.
November 2025: Media regulator The Australian Communications and Media Authority, under fire for failing to act on the smutty content of the show, files a legal notice that it intends to add new conditions to the Sydney and Melbourne licences of Kiis. Behind the scenes ACMA negotiates with Stephenson, and doesn’t pull the trigger on the new conditions.
Thursday, February 19, 2026: Sandilands and Henderson are sidelined from Heard, the annual marketing showcase organised by industry body Commercial Radio & Audio. Instead, Christian O’Connell, the face of ARN’s other network, Gold, takes the stage. O’Connell has leapfrogged ahead of Sandilands in strategic value to ARN, and has seen his show go multi-city since January.
Friday, February 20 2026: The next day, a fired-up Sandilands berates various members of the production team for complacency and disorganisation. Later in the same show, he accuses Henderson of being “away with the fairies” during the show, distracted by reading horoscopes.
Monday, February 23: Henderson does not return to the show after the weekend.
As Henderson’s absence continues, the next part is contested.
According to the usually well-informed team on the Game Changers Radio podcast, Henderson did not get legal advice but relied on the counsel of her manager Gemma O’Neill before telling ARN she could no longer work with Sandilands. That’s contradicted by yesterday’s AFR article, which also seems well sourced, suggesting it was indeed a formal communication from Henderson’s lawyers and was “not an off the cuff statement”.
Tuesday March 3: ARN terminates Jackie Henderson’s contract. It tells the ASX: “Ms Jacqueline Henderson has given notice that she ‘cannot continue to work with Mr Kyle Sandilands.’”. The formality of the quoted language from Henderson – “Mr Kyle Sandilands” – also suggests there was a formal legal communication. ARN takes the show off air and gives Sandilands 14 days to “remedy the breach”.
Again, views are divided whether remedying the breach consists of apologising to Henderson for his on air comments, or the more material – and likely impossible to achieve – remedy of being able to go on presenting The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
The way the ASX statement is written gives the impression ARN and Henderson are in the same camp and that she will be given another show.
Friday March 6, 2026: Henderson issues a statement insisting she “did not quit or resign”.
Tuesday March 10, 2026: Sandilands issues a statement saying ARN’s behaviour “is not a genuine process”.
Which takes us to Friday’s two developments.
Friday, March 13, 2026, 3pm: The AFR reports that Henderson’s lawyers have written to ARN stating that her contract has been wrongfully terminated and that the ASX statement misled the market.
Friday March 13, 2026, 5.37pm: The Age reports that Sandilands has hired a legal team including barrister Philip Boncardo, who helped Antoinette Lattouf win her unlawful termination case against the ABC, and lawyer Scott Robertson.
Which brings us to this week.
Tuesday March 17 2026 marks the deadline for Sandilands to remedy the breach. It seems likely that unless there is a further intervention, ARN will then move to terminate Sandilands’ contract too.
Thursday March 19 2026 will see the metro radio ratings for Survey 1 released. They cover the period from January 18 to February 28. Sandilands and Henderson were together for five of those six weeks.
There’s also speculation that next week will see ACMA finally release its determination on the show’s code breaches. Stable. Door. Horse. Bolted.
It’s worth noting that there’s a huge difference between sending a lawyer’s letter and actually filing a claim with the courts. So far, in theory, the situation could be resolved by negotiation.
Next week will be a test of nerve for ARN CEO Michael Stephenson. If he terminates the contract with Sandilands when Tuesday’s deadline expires, the war begins.
This article originally appeared as part of Tim Burrowes’ Best of the Week newsletter. Sign up here.
