Source : the age
Kyle Sandilands’ new digital radio show, Kyle Sandilands Live, began streaming live on Monday morning with a “clunky” start.
“It is live. We’re all here, and it’s a digital mess behind the scenes,” Sandilands said at the start of the show, before introducing his new cast, including longtime manager and close friend Bruno Bouchet, as well as Mary Madigan, formerly from News Corp’s News.com.au.
“We’re off to a clunky start,” he added. About an hour in, Bouchet reset the entire show due to technology issues.
“Bruno now wants to turn the entire system off and reset,” Sandilands said just after 7am, with Bouchet adding: “Everything’s going to go black here. We’re going to lose all audio, all lights. Screens are going to shut down.”
But it wasn’t just tech causing problems. Within the first five minutes of the show, Sandilands introduced Jaimee “Mayo” Blazquez as his executive director, prompting Bouchet to refer to her using an expletive.
Sandilands replied jokingly: “Bruno, I made it quite clear to the ensemble cast. This isn’t some potty-mouth all-boys’ club filth nest”.
The first guest came within the first half an hour, with celebrity psychic John Edwards joining on-air via Zoom, though his feed was impeded by technical issues and different presenters’ microphones talking over him.
Sandilands was able to, however, squeeze in a question about whether Edwards has witnessed “anyone giving themselves a fiddle” while travelling through the spirit world.
NSW Premier Chris Minns was the show’s first live in-studio guest, with Sandilands recalling recently running into Minns in the Blue Mountains and mistaking him for a “meth head”.
“You know what I like about you?” Sandilands said, after the pair shared a laugh.
“People on all sides of politics – Labor, Liberals, One Nation types, the Nationals … you don’t seem very Labor.”
Minns replied: “Well, we try and be common sense”.
Sandilands’ only political question to the premier was whether he would get rid of e-bikes, or Lime bikes, after the host gifted one to his teenage boy, which Sandilands said had made him start “behaving”.
“When there’s a new technology, like anything, there are people that take it too far,” Minns replied, talking about how rules evolved with use of the technology.
Minns then cut a golden ribbon to commemorate the occasion before leaving.
Earlier in the show, Sandilands said there would also be a potential call-in from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, and joked about having Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on as well.
Despite costing $99.99 a year – with an upfront payment being the only payment method available – Sandilands said the show is not running advertisements “because of the female militant activist group, the Mad Fucking Witches”.
“They tried to threaten all the clients. Then apparently, clients pretended to be too scared to advertise to their people, so they stopped paying. They stopped putting ads in the show, and I said, ’Oh well, screw them. We’ll work around them. We’ll go straight to the consumer,” Sandilands said.
And the first song aired? Josh Fawaz’s controversial AI-cover of Madonna’s Like A Prayer.
The rest of the digital radio show’s crew includes Alfie Laguzza and Dean Royston, with Brooklyn Ross moving across from ARN, Sandilands’s former employer, as a newsreader alongside Madigan.
Podcaster Josh Fox is also part of the on-air team, as is Pedro Cuccovillo Vitola.
More to come.
Kayla Olaya is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
