Call it a tragic inevitability, call it a desperate grab for ratings, call it the end of all things. No matter which way you spin it, the fact remains the same: Kyle Sandilands has a TV show coming on Channel Ten. Good lord.
The perennial bag of commercial radio hot air has been tapped by Ten as part of its vaunted Pilot Week experiment, which will see a raft of shows trialled for one episode before the best/most popular ones are picked up for a full series. It’s the same experiment that, for one reason or another, is pairing Roxy Jacenko and Sam Dastyari up for a show where they discuss global scandals. Everything’s very normal over at Channel Ten, right now. Business as usual.
Kyle revealed the news to co-host Jackie O on his usual breakfast slot on KIIS FM this morning, confirming that the show is to be called Trial By Kyle (christ) and it will be a Judge Judy-style show (CHRIST).
The pilot will see people with grievances come to Kyle for arbitration, whether that be – in Kyle’s words – someone having a dispute with a dodgy plumber, or “maybe some girl got a botched tit job and she wants to sue her doctor.”
Kyle, as you’re all probably aware, was spectacularly binned by Channel Ten in 2009 after his infamous radio stunt in which he grilled a 14-year-old girl on-air into revealing she’d been sexually assaulted. Sandilands was a judge on Australian Idol at the time.
Despite this clearly abhorrent behaviour, Kyle today maintained that Ten was “a dog of a network” that “treated me so badly” over the incident, but his return is purely being motivated by the fact that he’s getting paid. Good stuff. Good, good, real good stuff, right there.
Trial By Kyle will likely air at least one episode during the Pilot Week experiment. Whether it gets anything beyond that is anyone’s guess.
Now then. Whomst else desires a very stiff drink after reading all that.
