In this week’s On Background, we reveal Kyle Sandilands’ mortgaged mansion gave him one great reason to settle, a potentially painful court battle looms for Southern Cross Media, Capital Brief expands its press gallery team, and staff at another news outlet weigh a potential strike.
King Kyle’s crumbling castle
In reaching a $12 million settlement with ARN this week, shock jock Kyle Sandilands was after a quick fix for his growing relevance deprivation syndrome.
But he was also after money, fast, because his debts were piling up faster than anyone knew.
You see, Sandilands, he of the multimillion-dollar luxury car collection, is a bloke with expensive (if slightly garish) tastes. And he “has mortgages to pay like everyone else”, as the shock jock so bluntly put it outside the Federal Court following a preliminary hearing in March.
It has been widely reported that Sandilands has four of those. There’s a mortgage on the $14 million Vaucluse trophy home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs bought in 2023, a mortgage on the $3 million Southern Highlands farmhouse purchased in 2018, a mortgage on the $1.8 million Copacabana fixer-upper nabbed last year on the NSW Central Coast, and a mortgage on the $3 million Glenorie estate that he acquired in 2022. Those are all from top-tier lender NAB.
But real estate documents obtained by On Background show there’s a second mortgage on the Glenorie property, executed on April 24.
That’s more than a month after KIIS-owner ARN stopped paying him, which would go a long way to explaining the brutal terms that Sandilands accepted on the mortgage to let him borrow up to $2 million. The “lower” rate of interest on the loan is 19.75 per cent a year, but it gets worse: the “higher rate” is an eye-watering 29.75 per cent.
It’s hard to imagine someone who isn’t in dire need of cash accepting those brutal rates.
But here’s the kicker: Sandilands couldn’t even get the full $2 million technically available under the mortgage. The lender, an entity called Mortgage Holdings Group, kept $395,000 of the loan amount to cover the staggering interest rate.
And even if the profane broadcaster can clear the loan early, the mortgage documents require him to pay at least six months’ interest.
It’s no wonder, then, that Sandilands – whose spokesman declined to comment – is trying to flog the property behind the mortgages, which is on the reaches of Sydney’s north-western Hills District. He bought the pile in secret as a potential home for his wife, Tegan Kynaston, and young son. But she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of life in the well-heeled boondocks, a circa hour-long drive from the Sydney CBD. The couple is now happily ensconced in the more centrally located Vaucluse home.
The palatial Glenorie home was put on the market by Sandilands in February, just a week after his spectacular on-air attack on co-host Jackie “O” Henderson, which kicked off this whole very expensive saga.
No “sold” sign has since appeared on the home, despite Sandilands and Kynaston dropping the price to $4.9 million. Not even a styling photo of Sandilands’ bespoke Rolls-Royce phantom (number plate KS20) seems to have been enough to move the dial.
Anyway, at least the home is receiving attention of some sort. When On Background came calling, the real estate agent advised that she’d been instructed not to comment to the media, after receiving several inquiries.
No sign, yet, of the kind of attention that would excite Sandilands. And all the while, his interest bill ticks up.
Justice adjourned
It’s been a gnarly few days for Southern Cross Media, the entity formed out of a merger between the radio company that owns radio stations such as 2DayFM and Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media.
Job cuts of up to 300 staff, announced last week, have sent waves of panic rippling across the newsrooms. Tongues are wagging about a string of redundancies among female on-air talent, suggesting that the new company has inherited a bit of the baggage Seven carried over its handling of gender-related issues (anyone remember the unfortunate sexy Santa dancers?).
Meanwhile, on the Southern Cross side, a matter in the Federal Court threatens to rip open an old sore that the radio network would like to forget. It all centres on one of Southern Cross station 2DayFM’s less flattering moments, which, shockingly enough, did not involve Kyle Sandilands, the network’s star until his dramatic defection to KIIS in 2013.
Back in 2012, 2DayFM hosts Michael Christian and Mel Greig placed a prank call to the London hospital where Catherine, Princess of Wales (then the Duchess of Cambridge) had been admitted with severe morning sickness. Posing as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the pair managed to elicit sensitive medical information about the royal.
The network was thrilled with the hoax, until Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who had answered the phone, took her own life and 2DayFM faced international outrage. The pair’s show was swiftly axed, and Greig later moved on, after settling a workplace lawsuit with the network.
But Christian remained with the company until he was made redundant last year. He subsequently launched legal action against Southern Cross, alleging that the company had breached several provisions of the Fair Work Act, including by taking adverse action against him for exercising a workplace right by making a complaint, and that he had suffered physical and psychological injury and reputational damage.
Key to that claim was Christian’s involvement in the royal prank. In his statement of claim, the former host alleged that the company had left him and Greig “exposed to relentless public vitriol, harassment and abuse, including death threats”, and rendered them “convenient fall guys” for the incident.
He alleges that the company promised to rebuild his brand, but instead left him marginalised and denied high-profile presenting opportunities. His lawyers claim the network breached whistleblower protections by “inducing [his] silence” after the prank.
All this would make for a rather messy courtroom battle – if it ever gets there. The matter was listed for a preliminary hearing last July, but was adjourned. Then it was adjourned again in September. And again. And again. After nine adjournments, the matter was listed for an administrative hearing on Thursday. The outcome? You guessed it. Adjourned.
Brief encounter
Another day, another high-profile departure from Southern Cross Media.
Katina Curtis, The West Australian’s Canberra bureau chief, is off to start a gig as senior political correspondent at online upstart Capital Brief, which is revving up its presence in the press gallery.
Curtis, who is vice-president of the Press Gallery Committee and previously worked for this masthead, is a well-respected presence in the Canberra bubble. We hear she left of her own volition, and wasn’t caught up in the latest round of job cuts at Southern Cross.
Strike two?
When unionised staff at the ABC went on strike for the first time in more than 20 years in March, many of their colleagues in the media were watching closely.
In particular, the journalists at newswire Australian Associated Press (AAP), who are in the middle of tense negotiations with management for a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
Staff at the wire say they’re frustrated at having to do more with less, and want some assurance that the additional $15 million in government funding that AAP was granted in the May budget will be distributed to its journalists. So far, management hasn’t provided clarity on where that money will go.
The union is demanding a 15 per cent pay rise over three years as part of a new agreement.
“If AAP management doesn’t come to the table with an offer, union members will consider moving to their first ever protected action ballot,” said Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance media director Cassie Derrick.
After months of waiting, management finally responded on Thursday with an offer that promised staff an 11.5 per cent increase over three years.
Good enough to soothe fired up journalists at an organisation where morale is low? We’ll soon find out.
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Nick Bonyhady is the business editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a former deputy federal editor, technology editor and industrial relations reporter.Connect via X or email.
Kishor Napier-Raman is a senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliamentary press gallery.Connect via X or email.
