New details have emerged about Kyle Sandilands’ highly anticipated return to broadcasting, with his longtime manager and friend Bruno Bouchet revealing the shock jock’s new show will launch next month with a very different format to traditional radio.
Speaking on the Game Changers Radio podcast, Bouchet confirmed Kyle Sandilands Live will launch on Monday, August 10 through Sandilands’ upcoming standalone app.
The new breakfast show will ditch traditional radio conventions, with Bouchet revealing the platform will offer fans both audio and video, with no ads and no restrictions.
“It’s a live breakfast show on Kyle’s very own platform, where you get the audio and the video, it’s uncensored, it’s ad-free,” Bouchet said.
“Instead of taking traditional calls like you would through mobiles and landlines, it’s all video calls and I think it’s going to be a fair bit of fun.”
While the show will live outside traditional radio, Bouchet said it will still include familiar breakfast radio staples, including music and a newsreader.
The subscription-based service will cost $99 annually, with no monthly payment option available at launch.
The announcement follows news that Sandilands will also feature in a four-part docuseries, At Home With Kyle, which Bouchet said is expected to premiere in late July.
Despite the launch date being locked in, Bouchet admitted there is still plenty of work happening behind the scenes to bring the new platform to life.
“Creating this platform and getting it all together, we’ve got some really good people to help us build it, so it’s not just me buying a video camera and a tripod and being like ‘all right Kyle, let it rip!’ It’s a bit more than that,” he said.
Bouchet remained tight-lipped on some of the show’s biggest reveals, including the identity of the new female newsreader joining Sandilands.
“I can’t let the cat out of the bag about who the newsreader is going to be – a fantastic female talent who I’m so pumped for her and Kyle to be riffing and do the show together,” he said.
“I think the chemistry is just off the charts between the two of them.”
Bouchet also teased that Sandilands will address the dramatic fallout from his former radio partnership with Jackie “O” Henderson, following their explosive on-air disagreement on February 20 that ultimately led to the end of The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
Sandilands later reached a reported $12 million settlement with former employer ARN after the termination of his reported $100 million contract.
As one of Sandilands’ closest confidants, Bouchet said he had watched the broadcaster experience a range of emotions over the past four months.
“To his credit he kept it together very well. He’s very much a facts guy, so he enjoyed talking to lawyers because they’re all very matter-of-fact, and he was great throughout this whole period,” he said.
“Some days better than others, but he was OK. More than anything he started to get bored and restless, understandably.”
However, Bouchet believes the experience has marked a new chapter for Sandilands, both personally and professionally.
“I think you’ll see that there’s an evolution of Kyle as a broadcaster, as a personality,” he said.
“He’s become a bit more three-dimensional.”
