Investors have delivered a strong rebuke of ARN Media’s leadership by overwhelmingly (90 per cent) voting down CEO Michael Stephenson’s $1.1 million salary package at the company’s AGM yesterday.
The protest vote — one of Australia’s largest in recent times — sent a strong message that investors were unhappy about ARN Media’s leadership and performance and the ongoing legal saga between the company and its former Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson.
In the past year, ARN’s value nosedived by 54 per cent to 27 cents per share, with a market capitalisation of $83 million.
New boss Michael Stephenson only took the CEO reins in January this year.
He has already had to contend with a declining advertising market, dismissing ARN’s two biggest stars in Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson (who were costing the company $20 million a year), and the subsequent legal battle between the pair and their former employer, which subsequently sued them for loss of advertising revenue.
On the other hand, ARN Media’s chairman, Hamish McLennan, who signed off on Kyle and Jackie O’s mouth-watering $200 million ten year contract, received a vote of confidence from investors.
He was re-elected as chair by around 80 per cent of investors, leaving one senior media agency boss “f***** stunned”.
“This is all his doing,” the leader said under the condition of anonymity. “He is a koala, a protected species.”
At yesterday’s AGM, McLennan doubled down on the decision to make Kyle & Jackie O Australia’s best paid media talent by saying the pair were the country’s biggest radio stars, responsible for a lot of revenue coming into the business, and ARN had to ward off a competition.
It turns out Kyle & Jackie O Show’s often crude and controversial style was also responsible for a lot revenue leaving ARN.
Stephenson noted that ARN’s metro radio revenue fell by $28.3m to $147.3m in 2025/26, and most of that decline ($22m) was due to advertisers pulling out due to brand safety concerns, a nod to a high profile advertiser boycott targeting the Kyle & Jackie O Show.
Stephenson, the former long-term sales chief at Nine, said: “clients who had chosen not to advertise with ARN because of issues relating to brand safety” and that “advertiser expectations have changed” in line with shifting consumers’ expectations.
Stephenson’s plan to turn around the business involves repositioning ARN Media from a traditional radio broadcaster into a multimedia company that can monetise talent across podcasts, live events, digital video and social.
He said that advertisers would return over time, but it seems that investors’ patience is wearing thin.
