Radio

I received this email from Anon, and I'm guessing that's not his or her real name:

Brett, the mother asked the question with a smile on her face, yet you continue with the bagging – class act!

Anon, at no stage have I defended the mother. On the face of the evidence, what she did to her own daughter is appalling. But, like the guests on Jerry Springer, she's a nobody who wanted to have her 15 minutes of fame. If you talk to Kyle Sandilands, as I have (and, I'm guessing, Anon, that you haven't), he will tell you how he is a professional broadcaster. Well no professional would organise this kind of stunt without knowing what to expect. Granted, it seems Sandilands was in New Zealand, so it was probably one of the production staff who set it all up in this instance. But Kyle and Jacki O would have known all about it in advance and they happily went along with it all as a 14-year-old girl was quizzed by her mother about truancy, drugs and sex - as if these family matters were something that ought to be heard on breakfast radio. They thought it was all OK - up until and including the revelation about her being raped. Apart from this gross lack of judgment in putting this to air in the first place, somebody (not Kyle, if he was in NZ) could have pushed the "kill" button and they did not. With the seven-second delay, the rape revelation would not have gone to air at all. But it did go to air because somebody on the Kyle and Jackie O show thought it was OK. In fact, I'll go further than that - I suggest they thought it was radio "gold". Kyle's ill-conceived response only made a bad situation worse. He says he was desperately signalling for the segment to be brought to an end, but not, apparently, within the seven-second safety period. And the fact remains that there is a culture at 2Day, and especially on the Kyle and Jackie O show, that says anything is OK as long as it fetches ratings.

The knives are out again for 2Day breakfast host Kyle Sandilands after his insensitive handling of a young girl who confessed to being raped at age 12. (See The Punch's spin on the story here.) As I discovered back in 2001 - when Sandilands orchestrated a on-air confrontation between a schoolgirl and her mother, who had slept with the girl's boyfriend - 2Day owner Austereo's main concern is ratings, and Sandilands will have a job as long as he delivers strong figures. Nothing short of a listener boycott will unthrone the self-proclaimed king of commercial FM breakfast radio.
PS: Back in 2001, Sandilands told me he overruled co-host Jackie O in putting the segment to air because of his "experience". Eight years later, he has learned nothing. A radio station has no business strapping a 14-year-old to a lie-detector and asking her about her sexual experiences.