In this week’s On Background, Kyle Sandilands’ very bad broadcast is worse in full, Lachlan Murdoch finds a new consigliere, and ABC staff take aim at their chairman for disclosing a new and improved pay offer in an “outrageous” way.
The other Kyle tirade
Kyle and Jackie O’s broadcast of February 20, 2026 has gone down in the history books for one reason: his excoriation of her passion for astrology that was so severe that it broke their partnership of 27 years.
But that moment was just the most minute of straws on the camel’s back, as the rest of that episode shows.
Earlier in the show, in the build up to horoscope-gate, it was already clear Sandilands had got out of bed on the wrong side.
“I might as well tell you guys now so you don’t wait for a meeting next week. I told Bruno [Bouchet, Sandilands’ manager and the show’s executive producer] yesterday, everyone needs to up their game,” a Sandilands vented, before directing his fury at ‘Intern Pete’, one of the show’s staff members and not, in fact, an intern.
“We’re onto you that you’re doing hardly any work, you spend most of your time here eating and then down at the gay sauna,” Sandilands said.
After Pete told Sandilands he was banned from attending the red carpet event for Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights, Sandilands insisted staff “elevate your problems, rather than just letting the show turn into a piece of shit”, and to stop “bludging their way through the show”.
“We can’t have liars working on the show […] Does everyone understand?” he thundered at the flock of producers, to which only two responded.
“What about the other eight people, just too scared to speak?” Who wouldn’t be, Kyle!
“Normally this stuff would be done after the show in a meeting, but who’s got the time to hang around,” he continued.
But the most telling line came from a listener, who called in to praise both Sandilands and Henderson, who was silent throughout her colleague’s rant. .
“You know what I love most?” the listener said. “The way that Jackie just sat there and let Kyle do his thing, because she respects him and supports him, another thing these kids don’t have. The way Jackie just sat there was class. And let you speak and the room went silent. So good on you.”
And it wasn’t long that morning before Kyle turned his ire to Jackie… and the rest, as they say, is history.
27 years of radio, summed up in one show.
Lachlan’s new fixer
With all the attention on KIIS FM and its parent company ARN this year, the company’s main rivals have been able to slide under the radar.
For a change, paparazzi were stationed outside Kyle Sandilands’ house in Vaucluse, as opposed to a suburb over at Lachlan Murdoch’s Bellevue Hill mansion.
Such relative peace only lasts a moment for the son of the Sun King, though, because a new four part Netflix documentary series is due for release next week about the Murdochs, and it doesn’t look like it will be complementary about any of them.
In the meantime, Lachlan has been getting on with things. After the much-publicised exit of his long-time fixer and consigliere Siobhan McKenna, he has installed a new czar for his private business Illyria and radio company Nova.
That person, On Background can reveal, is Linda Norquay. She’s taken the title of Illyria CEO and Nova Entertainment chair.
She’s a former banker at Macquarie, Barclays and the now-defunct Allco Financial Group right up until it went bust in 2008 during the GFC.
It isn’t as though this is some new hire for Murdoch, though. Norquay has been with Illyria since 2010 as its chief financial officer and company secretary. The low profile finance professional took an increasingly hands-on approach as McKenna’s News Corp portfolio responsibilities grew over the years with both Foxtel and Sky News.
But like McKenna, everyone eventually comes out of the shadows when they’re dragged closer into the Murdoch orbit.
Programming error
There is a schism developing on Sky News’ After Dark line up.
At 8pm on Wednesday night, Sky News After Dark host Sharri Markson said podcaster and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly is “becoming more anti-semitic”, referencing her views on the reasons behind America and Israel’s war in Iran.
“She is following the Tucker Carlson path. Just in January this year she also backed Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. She described him as smart and interesting and said he made good points about America.
“These are not words one should use to describe a grotesque racist,” Markson said as part of a longer segment on Kelly, arguing “there is a reason that people like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly are not on Fox News anymore”.
“These people have lost their journalistic credibility […] yet their influence and misinformation online remains dangerous.”
Well, it appears their influence and misinformation isn’t limited to just “online” because quite literally one hour later, who was the star guest on Paul Murray Live? Megyn Kelly!
Damn, who is curating the programming over there? Maybe the Islamophobic guest who appeared on Freya Leach’s short-lived show last year with bacon draped over his shoulders could even get another run!
As we’ve previously reported at On Background, Sharri appears the only Sky evening host resisting the temptation to slide further to the right, as evidenced by the prominence of One Nation figures on the network. Though in saying that, Hanson did pop up on Sharri right after we wrote about it.
As some on social media pointed out, Murray introduced Kelly on Wednesday as “our favourite person in the world”. Kelly went on to call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu America’s “secret president” and the driving force behind Trump’s actions.
On Background inquired to Sky whether “our” includes everyone the network?
It appears with all the complications of the new name, someone must’ve forgotten to pass around the same hymn sheet.
$1000 and an AFR subscription
With ABC staff inching closer to its first proper strike in some years this week, staff were anxiously awaiting an updated offer from ABC managing director Hugh Marks.
But as Wednesday’s town hall approached, word spread quickly around the Ultimo offices that Marks was briefing the latest offer to The Australian Financial Review alongside a rooftop photoshoot.
That offer, they soon found out, was a $1000 cash bonus on top of the existing 10 per cent pay rise over three years.
While it’s a good strategy to get the word out, the voice of capital in Australia (and our Nine Entertainment stablemates) is an odd choice when you’re convincing staff who clearly prefer The Guardian to take up your offer.
“Management has decided, yet again, to bypass a fair bargaining process and put this offer to an all-staff vote without providing unions an opportunity to check final drafting,” messaging from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said.
Voting on the protected action ballot kicked off last week, and around 85 per cent of members have voted so far, we hear. Union messaging on Wednesday immediately downgraded the $1000 cash-in-hand offer to $700, after tax, which makes On Background think they may not be won over just yet.
Calum Jaspan is a media writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Melbourne. Reach him securely on Signal @calumjaspan.10Connect via X or email.
