Updated ,first published
The chair of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson’s former radio network has vowed to keep fighting their $170 million combined lawsuits, telling shareholders at the company’s annual meeting that he was personally investing $500,000 into ARN in a show of confidence.
Chief executive Michael Stephenson told the meeting that ARN had lost $26 million last year in advertising revenue from clients pulling spending over “brand safety” concerns, in a reference to the crude and sexualised content on The Kyle & Jackie O Show.
“Over time, I expect that a significant percentage of the $26 million of revenue that was lost through the year because of brand safety concerns to return,” Stephenson said.
Two months after sacking the hosts of The Kyle and Jackie O Show, KIIS network owner ARN Media’s chief executive, chairman and board are facing fired-up investors and the media for the first time at the company’s annual general meeting in North Sydney.
Proxy votes showed company chair Hamish McLennan would be re-elected as chair, despite 20 per cent of proxy votes opposing his re-election. In the lead-up to the meeting, McLennan faced investor calls to step down after handing Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson their $200 million in combined contracts and presiding over an 87 per cent decline in the valuation of ARN.
The company has faced heavy media scrutiny – and duelling legal cases – after handing Sandilands and Henderson the most expensive talent deals in Australian media history, and then tearing them up after a little more than a year.
“If I was Hamish, I’d see the writing on the wall,” one key shareholder told this masthead last month, noting a suite of poor strategic decisions including the $307 million purchase of regional broadcaster Grant Broadcasters just five years ago, a figure that dwarves the entire company’s current valuation several times over.
At the meeting, veteran investor David Kingston asked McLennan a string of hostile questions, including asking him to recount the “the three biggest mistakes you and the board have made that have contributed to the massive shareholder loss?”
McLennan called the question “loaded” and said the entire traditional media sector was under pressure. McLennan said the company regularly reflected on its performance, but that he was committed to ARN.
“We’re not happy with where we’re at the moment,” McLennan said. “I think hindsight is a wonderful thing when you look at a range of different decisions, but it’s a very, very fluid environment, and I think the board stands by all the decisions they make.”
He defended the Grant acquisition, saying it was contributing to earnings. “It’s been a fantastic acquisition for us,” McLennan said, after Kingston said he was “shocked” by his defence of the purchase.
McLennan, who has faced some scrutiny over his relatively small shareholding in the company despite being its chair, told investors at the AGM he will invest $500,000 into ARN.
“I will be making this investment in my personal capacity as a demonstration of my confidence in the company’s strategy,” he said. Two days ago, this masthead reported McLennan is selling his Sydney home for $36 million.
During his address, McLennan reinforced ARN’s position that Henderson has told the company she could no longer work with Sandilands and therefore backed out of her contract to deliver The Kyle & Jackie O Show.
He said she had told ARN: “direct contact with Mr Sandilands [was] now untenable.”
McLennan said that ARN was confident in its litigation strategy. “I would like to assure shareholders that the board is committed to defending these claims and actively pursuing the cross-claims,” he said.
While two key proxy advisory firms backed McLennan’s reelection, one, CGI Glass Lewis, argued Stephenson’s fixed $1.1 million contract is too much, based on the fact it is well above the median $812,000 paid to ASX250-300 companies, and ARN is not even on that list.
“This approach is notable in the context of the Company’s declining market capitalisation, which reduced from approximately $578 million at end of FY2021, to around $300 million over the following two years, and further to $124 million at FY2025 year-end and approximately $74 million as at 17 April 2026,” the report said.
ARN has defended Stephenson’s pay packet based on his responsibilities and talent.
The AGM is the first for Michael Stephenson, who initially joined ARN as its chief operating officer. He was previously chief sales officer at Nine (the owner of this masthead) for a decade.
This week, Sandilands and Henderson filed their defences in countersuits lodged against the duo by ARN. Sandilands’ legal team allege KIIS FM and ARN cashed in on he and Henderson’s on-air feuds, even going to lengths to promote them, a feature of the show’s daily soap opera drama.
“[ARN] publicly exploited and thereby sought to monetise the conduct,” Sandilands’ lawyers said in the documents.
“[They did this] without directing or requesting Mr Sandilands or Ms Henderson, not to engage in conduct of that kind.”
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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.
