It’s the electronic media’s new Code Of Contrition. After grossly offending the nation’s sensibilities, you must suspend yourself for two weeks, stay silent while the rest of the media takes aim, apologise fulsomely and promise your processes are fixed so that it will never happen again.
Kyle and Jackie O followed the Chaser script to the letter this morning as they returned to air on 2Day FM, following their spectacularly ill-conceived lie detector test, which offended pretty well everyone with ears.
“We have had time to reflect on it and it’s pretty obvious the whole thing was a disaster from start to finish,” offered Kyle Sandilands.
“I think everyone on the show has learned from this mistake and we’re sincerely sorry and we’ve put everything in place now that we’re confident it won’t happen again,” added Jackie Henderson.
Sandilands and Henderson momentarily strayed from the script, quibbling about news reports about a recent on-air fundraiser for a child with brain injuries, in which only about a third of the $150,000 pledged was actually donated.
While the chastened Kyle and Jackie O are back, two inquiries into the incident are taking place. Firstly, all of the complaints received by the radio station itself and by the Australian Communications and Media Authority will be adjudicated by 2Day FM’s owners, Austereo. If — and only if — any of the complainants are unhappy with the outcome, ACMA will conduct an investigation into the incident and the station’s response.
ACMA has referred at least 137 complaints to 2Day FM. Austereo has received many more, although by today’s deadline it did not say how many.
At the same time ACMA is conducting a broader inquiry into the commercial radio industry’s standards. It has promised to wade through the various laws and codes of practice governing on-air shenanigans in the form of “stunts, pranks, competitions and challenges” to assess whether radio networks are complying with community standards. It has asked for submissions from industry and public groups.
It is likely to investigate Kyle and Jackie O‘s recent on-air challenge involving a woman begging to be allowed to stay in the country to visit her loved ones. This exercise in ritual sadism was highlighted in a recent episode of Media Watch.
Although any disinterested observer would have to conclude that stunt was a disgrace, it is unlikely that the ACMA review will result in any more than a tweaking of the industry’s standards. Unless 2Day FM grossly mishandles its many complaints, it has very little to fear from the regulators. Only 2Day FM’s audiences, and ultimately its advertisers, have any real power to raise its standards.
I think Kyle and Jackie O’s apology has all the sincerity we come to expect from them (ie: none). Just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it is good. For example, burning of witches, stoning of adulators, lynching of blacks, feeding Christians to the lions and watching gladiators duel to the death have all been popular in history. And it will only be a matter of time before attractions like this return if the sociopaths behind many popular reality tv and radio shows aren’t held in check by the rest of us.
Try this for a ‘process’ Kyle & Jackie – hook yourselves up to the lie detector so that it cuts you off whenever you lie. Ah, for the wonderful sounds of silence you’d hear on Austereo.
The gutless ACMA doesnt have the spine to persue a fly crawling up a wall. Once again the radio community is held up to ridicule by the minority over paid big noters, their minders and their advertisers. It is a great pity those who still consider themselves ‘professional broadcasters’don’t band together and let their distaste of the likes of Sandilands and his cohort, be known and known on the public air waves, through their own shows. If the countries radio personalities are to be judged as a group by the disgraceful antics of the 2Day Fm creeps, then the standards in this country are worse than I feared.
If enough listerers keep coming back to listen, then the same level of show will be aired.
If audiences drop off, advertisers will too and things will change. The fact that the audiences do NOT drop off says more about the tone of modern Australian culture, than about Kyle and Jackie personally.
I read the full script of what was said on that lie-detector day. (Thanks Crikey for providing it). I think that Jackie and Kyle were caught unaware and quite tossed by the whole turn of events. Kyle stumbled with his response; Jackie was concerned for the child – the whole thing was a mess and live to air.
Is their apology sincere? Probably. Will things change? Not much. The audience “out there” still wants that sort of stuff. And so advertisers will still pay – and the same kind of shows will continue.
So…how do we change the tone of our own culture to reject that kind of superficial and intrusive entertainment?
I mostly agree with you Jim especially with respect to the ritual sadism segment media watch highlighted. I always worry when governments and their regulatory bodies start talking about community standards. Rock and Roll music would never have been played on Australian radio if the conservative governments of the day had been able to strictly enforce “community standards”.
The lie detector stunt was however a completely different category in that involved a child. No child should be exposed to that sort of abuse and humiliation even if the topic hadn’t been about sex.
As to the media watch highlighted segment, well whilst it was highly distasteful the reality is that as far as I understand it the participants were adults (ie old enough to vote and drink in Australia). If adults are dumb enough to expose themselves to the sort of manipulation and humiliatiion any reasonable person would expect to receive at the hands of a commercial radio station in this day and age then is it really ACMA’s job to protect them from themselves?