“We’d rather live in Melbourne

Though some folks say it’s faulty.

Sydney’s got its strippers

But we’ve got Henry Bolte.

We’ve got Australian rules

And the Melbourne Cup each year.

Sydney’s girls are way out front

But we’ve got stronger beer.”

A spoof hit song, Melborn and Sideny, by the Idlers Five, 1968

There is something warming – and more than a little smug – to the Victorian heart to know that Sydney radio’s prince and princess of vulgarity, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, have crashed and burned in their attempt to emulate in Melbourne their spectacular Sydney ratings.

Sandilands (“Vile Kyle” to his detractors) and Jackie Henderson, his microphone partner, are supposed to be receiving about $10 million a year each over the next 10 years as reward for drawing in advertisers excited by smutty stunts.

A billboard in Melbourne advertising the Kyle & Jackie O show, which has failed to attract Sydney-level audience numbers.Credit: Paul Rovere

Their $200 million deal – a sum that would have left even old “Golden Tonsils” John Laws weak at the knees – was drawn up on the presumption that their peculiar popularity in Sydney (where they get ratings of about 16 per cent) would sweep all before them as they took their breakfast show, modestly titled Hour of Power, to the other state capitals, starting in Melbourne.

Oops. The Hour of Power Sydney toilet-jokes format on KIIS caused the pair to take a colossal gutser in Melbourne from the start.

A year on, their latest rating is a measly 5.1 per cent, placing the show........

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