ARN Media buys skywriting to impress Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ...

The meeting was in North Sydney because ARN intends to relocate its studios, currently in Macquarie Park in Sydney’s north-west, to a building on Mount Street. Skywriting and billboards alongside the impending move illustrate the extraordinary lengths executives like ARN chief executive Ciaran Davis must go to retain the biggest talent in Australian radio.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson.  

Sandilands and Henderson are reportedly paid as much as $8 million a year – each – by ARN. Multiple sources close to the negotiations confirmed earlier this month that Southern Cross Media, which owns Hit and Triple M radio stations, had been “pretty aggressive” in approaching the pair as they enter the final 18 months of their contract, which is due to expire at the end of 2024. Southern Cross’s new CEO, John Kelly, will be looking to make his mark, and luring away the industry’s highest-profile talent would be a helluva way to do it.

After the Financial Review’s story a few weeks ago, Sandilands addressed the speculation on air. “

What’s my motto?” he asked Henderson.

“Where there’s a till, there’s a way,” she responded.

It’s not just Sky News upping the coverage of the Indigenous Voice to parliament as the referendum approaches. The ABC is working on a Voice podcast, sources said, and is expected to roll out former Radio National breakfast presenter Fran Kelly to head it. The podcast will be co-hosted, according to the plans, by Carly Williams, a Quandamooka woman and a reporter in the public broadcaster’s national affairs team.

It’s good timing for Fran, a proven draw whose short-lived Friday night show Frankly was cancelled after one season. But the choice to pair her with Williams will draw some attention. Williams was dragged into the news earlier this year when she broadcast a report about a Save our Alice Springs meeting that was described as a “disgusting show of white supremacy”.

The ABC later said the report presented an “incomplete picture”.