Kyle Sandilands’ broadside at News Limited journalist Alison Stephenson could not have come at a worse time.
Tomorrow is White Ribbon Day – the UN sanctioned day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
His remarks against Stephenson were insulting, abusive and threatening.
But it also comes at a time when it threatens to spoil Seven’s party.
On Saturday Seven will wrap up an astounding success of 40 weeks in Total People. It now risks finishing on an appalling footnote to the year.
Seven prides itself on being a family network that pitches to a broad Australian audience but it is seemingly burying its head in the sand.
On Monday it entertained Sandilands’ ambitions for his own primetime show.
But you can’t get into bed with an outspoken personality and then duck for cover when it goes awry.
Radio sponsors and Seven’s own personalities are doing a better PR job than Seven management.
“Obviously Kyle’s remarks showed an intolerable level of disrespect to Alison, and indeed disrespect for women, and a frightening undercurrent of hostility,” said Andrew O’Keefe.
“Victims of violence know well that verbal abuse can be just as harmful as physical abuse, and when the words are overlain with an aggressive sexism they are an attack on the dignity of all women.”
The Daily Telegraph reports retailer The Good Guys said, “The Good Guys does not condone the recent actions of Kyle Sandilands and has withdrawn breakfast sponsorship.”
Telstra was reviewing their association with 2DAYFM, saying “Obviously we want to align ourselves with certain values and behaviours.”
But Seven has so far stayed silent. Is this because the remarks were made on radio and not television?
By comparison, in 2009 when the radio duo hosted their infamous lie-detector stunt, TEN dropped him from Australian Idol.
In a statement it said, “Idol has remained a family-focused show, even more so this year with the 6.30pm Sunday timeslot. His radio persona has taken on a more controversial position … which is not in the interest of the show.”
Australia’s Got Talent has enjoyed exceptional success with a huge family audience.
Yet its judge is able to call a journalist “a piece of shit” in the public arena and the network has no comment?
Does. Not. Make. Sense.
Don’t ignore this story now David.
Maintain the rage.
A headmaster bullying students would be sacked.
This must not be allowed to become yesterday’s news
@Raffles, the standard of journalism in this country is fine. Journalists do not have to embark on a “witch hunt” for Kyle, either. His unfiltered, ignorant mouth does that for him. If he persists in coming out with rants like this against people he perceives as his enemies, then he will pay a heavy price with the negative publicity it will generate. He cannot seriously think that he can say such deeply offensive things in a public arena and get away with it. If he does think that he can, then he is way more deluded than I thought he was. I suspect he has some kind of disorder that prevents his brain from properly filtering his speech when appropriate. I’ve just finished the Steve Jobs biography and he had a similar let it all hang out, abusive mouth that got him into big trouble on occasions, it totally reminded me of Kyle.
His show has had so many sponsors pull out there won’t be any ads left at all, they have to sack him, no way can they afford to lose that kind of money. Only reason I can think of for channel 7′s silence is that everyone left early for christmas or he has some amazing contract terms that completely protect him when he stuffs up like this.
Raffle, light entertainment?
You are kidding.
It’s sleaze, degradation and fake stunts.
Kyle is a d***. Agreed. But thank god! The media cannot wait to hang Kyle, was his show bad probably, but any chance to create a witch hunt by the media, wow, what an opportunity! Gold. Jornos in this country are lazy, look at the crap tv news shows, today tonight and current affair, where they have fabricated stories, granny in chains…
Kyle will stay, it’s right, its entertainment and I expect most of you on this are in the media. The sponsors need to distance themselves for now but you cannot argue with the power of the Kyle and Jackie o brand…slowly once the hype dies down they will crawl back.
But hey, it’s only entertainment. No one died.
@Moanique – “nobody forced the girl to participate in that lie detector stunt”.
Oh, ok – you mean like in the same way that nobody forced Kyle to continue with the interview after she said she’d been raped, and ask her – a 14 year old kid – if that was her only sexual experience? Yeah, good defence. Well done.
As usual Secret Squirrel is more eloquent than I could ever be.
@ Moanique – careful, your bias is showing.
Every major News service had a story running about the incident yet when i searched yahoo7.com.au, not one bit of information was available which Must mean they had future plans with the duo. Seven not saying anything, they are usually First to get out of a bad situation…
C’mon Seven do the right thing.
Get one of your highly paid execs to front up on one of your own shows
and publicly denounce Kyle’s words.
Just mention that you as network will sever all ties with him too.
It is time to get “totally insensitive folks” who use media outlets to voice nasty words
out of here.
@Secret Squirrel, as per usual, well said, sir.
Kyle defenders, would you dare speak to your Mum, your sister, your girlfriend, your wife or a female work colleague like that? No, didn’t think so. You just can’t defend the indefensible.
The media are looking after their own on this one. Don’t agree with what Kyle said but this is a witch hunt by all the media. Its ok to personally attack Pauline Hanson, Julia gillard,Joan Kirner. Its ok for the media to make fun of Kyle Minogues face. Its ok for Alan Jones and andrew bolt to say anything bad about julia gillard but have a go at a female journo and the media will hang you.
@Moanique, Kyle is heavily hyped by Seven as one of their network “stars” in a show it promotes as being family friendly. It is entirely appropriate for them to publicly comment, given that he abused a female, swore at her and publicly threatened an act of violence against her. He is in their stable and by extension, his actions reflect on them as he is one of their employees. It is absolutely immaterial that the rant took place on radio.
Kyle lovers need to understand the extreme odium and distaste felt for him by the community outside of his listeners’ fan club. He is barely tolerable to the vast majority of Australians and he has No place whatsoever judging talent, as he has none. He was only on Idol because of his penchant for creating controversy (ie publicity) and likewise, Seven picked him up for AGT for the same reason.
Why didn’t sponsors walk from Alan Jones’s show when he said that the prime minister should be shoved into a sack and dumped out at sea? Isn’t that violence towards a woman?
Well said Secret Squïrrel !! i don’t know how anyone can defend Sandilands.
I’ve hated Kyle since the Frenzal Rhomb thing years ago. He has no talent and nothing to offer the public. I sincerely believe he could have an undiagnosed personality disorder or mental illness. Frankly if he did I’d have at least a bit of sympathy/patience for him.
Secret Squirrel, I was about to write a post, but you have said it all. Nicely said!!
This was not a right of a reply, it was a threat. Plain and simple.
@ Secret Squirrel, just as you are calling anyone on here that supports Kyle “insensitive halfwits “, I would describe yours and others over-reactions to this whole issue as being the over-reactions of hypersensitive halfwits
….and the ‘wife/woman beating community’ feel that this bloke does not represent their views…..
Freedom of speech is not being able to say anything you like via a *privately owned* radio station *without consequence*. Freedom of speech means you are free to say what you want in a public space, and then be responded to by others who have an equal amount of freedom to say what they think of who and what was said.
If he argued about the article itself, nobody would care. Instead he started a personal, threatening, disgustingly abusive attack on the journalist herself, who was only reporting facts, as all journalists are supposed to, not dissimilarly to what David does here.
Any way you turn it, what Kyle said has to be addressed, and hopefully he is permanently dealt with.
For the record I agree that criticism of anybody, including Kyle, should be expressed without resorting to abuse or making it personal.
Why is it that the insensitive halfwits attempting to defend Sandilands’ on-air threats are so incapable of reading what was actually written by Ms Stephenson?
@Jason – pls quote me one sentence from Ms Stephenson’s article where she “She raised the previous radio instances when he was suspended”. You won’t be able to because she didn’t mention anything about his suspension. Her entire article is about the show and people’s reaction to it.
@BarryDBag – if that’s your idea of an apology well then I’m sorry for assuming what your middle initial must stand for.
For those of you saying that Sandilands is entitled to a right-of-reply against Ms Stephenson, of course he is. What he is not entitled to do is make disparaging comments about her appearance or threats of physical violence. Nowhere in her article does she attack him personally, his reaction is completely disproportionate and in appropriate. When you grow up and move beyond the schoolyard, you will hopefully develop an awareness about what behaviour is acceptable in adult society and what is not.
How can anybody defend him? She was doing her job as a reviewer and he made it personal. I totally agree though that he will be made a bogan martyr if he gets fired (look at some of the comments here..) so let’s just let the vile little man self-destruct I say.
I think people are right but for the wrong reasons.
Kyle needs some “Anger Management” over his shoot-the-messenger attitude. ‘Tis a pity that Media Watch has finished for the year, Jonathon’s team would have pestered Seven for a comment.
Any person who defends Kyle is condoning violence against women. The posters on here who do so should be ashamed of themselves. The man is pitiful and only ever picks fights with women as he obviously sees them as weaker. There’s a reason why Holden, Medibank, Vodafone, Good Guys, Harvey Norman, Fantastic Furniture, Blackmores and Telstra have all pulled their advertising. Because this sort of childish bullying shouldn’t be tolerated. Well done David, I am glad you are taking such a hard line of this!
Firstly… Kyle should have never been a talent judge. He had no business being on Aus Idol and as for AGT… well they’ve got Brian McFadden on there as well so it shows the standard on that show
Secondly.. what about all the abuse of the country’s Prime Minister gets on talk back radio? Both on 2GB and 2UE there are absolutely shocking things said by both callers and presenters about her. No one talks about or reports that.. except for perhaps Hamster Wheel. Honestly people have taken this way out of proportion..
Well said David.
Kyle should not be allowed to get away with this.
The bully has to go!!!
Seven … cut him loose now before he looses you your advertisers that you love so much! The new show is self indulgent and a waste of time and money … spend it on someone with some real talent or on new Aussie drama.
Kyle Sandilands is the 1%
How is this different from him threatening to punch Dave Hughes in the throat? He should have been gone a long time ago.
I don’t like Kyle & I don’t watch or listen to any of his shows.
I think his comments were offensive & he should be censured. But, I don’t understand why some of the offended think it’s OK to call Kyle names such a D***head, etc. Isn’t that just a little hypocritical.
The episode of the Simpsons where the Giant Advertising material came to life kind of sums this up, if we as a nation totally ignore him he will …go away.
We already have enough overpaid clowns getting attention in this country and they are called politicians and if they annoy us enough we don’t vote for them and they will…go away.
This seems like a good start if left to his own intelligence and vitriol he will implode, sponsors will remove his income stream and guess what…he will go away
Get rid of him!
Poor form Seven! Your silence is deafening!!!
Keep the reports coming!!
David, I cannot believe that you would think an issue as trivial as this would sour Sevens successful year in the ratings. Seriously, what an over-reaction. I have never seen so much hysteria, hypocrisy, and hate from commenters.
hahaha who cares? At least he says what he thinks..she probably is!
This whole story has been blown way out of proportion. So many comments below resort to calling Kyle names, while criticising him for abusing the journo. In my opinion Channel 7 do not need say anything about an incident that took place on radio, just as Channel 10 should have kept out of the lie detector scandal. Nobody forced the girl to participate in that lie detector stunt, perhaps her mother did trying to win free concert tickets.
There certainly is a difference between not agreeing with someone’s point of view versus making it personal.
Look at the way that Kyle acted against this journalist vs the way that Andrew O’Keefe responded. If Kyle had said similar words about the journalist (that O’Keefe had said about Kyle – “frightening undercurrent of hostility”) then there would be no issue.
It’s the bully boy tactics that have gone on for too long with Kyle. John Blackman was known for his nasty remarks on Hey Hey but they were always tongue in cheek. Kyle on the other hand has no tongue in cheek, no sarcasm – just plain aggression.
Even my mother, who loves 2Day FM, stopped listening to it when Kyle was digging through Jackie O’s rubbish bin on the air and giving unflattering play-by-play commentary. Enough is enough.
While I think Kyle Sandilands is vile and his comments were deplorable, I don’t see why Seven needs to make a statement about something that Kyle said on 2Day FM. I think there needs to be an apology made by the managers of 2Day FM and also Kyle himself to the woman he verbally abused. If that doesn’t happen then both should be disciplined. How does it help if Seven issues a statement to apologise for Kyle’s action on 2Day FM?
I cant stand Kyle although give me him over Rove anyday.
There has been an ongoing war of words between Kyle and the Telegraph. This is the latest battle.
Kyle has every right to respond to what this “journalist” wrote.
Hopefully when all the sponsors have dropped his show, Austereo and Channel 7 will let him go. @mark is right – he doesn’t just verbally abuse women, men cop it too. Firing back in a similar vein isn’t necessary either, but it is heartening to see so many people (celebrities and journalists included, who garner more coverage) standing up to say that derogatory, sexist language and verbal abuse is Not acceptable, and condoning it (as his co-host, employers and remaining sponsors are doing by their silence) is equally unacceptable.
More fallout:
news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/youre-a-fat-slag-i-will-hunt-you-down-kyle-sandilands-radio-rant-at-female-journalist-over-review-of-his-show/story-e6frfmqi-1226204281827
I can’t believe there are people out there who are defending this d***head. He’s an embarrassment to Australia and a real nutter.
@BarryDBag, Kyle has most definitely not apologised. He attempted to justify why he went verbally postal on Ms Stephenson, but the word sorry has not passed his lips. Even if it did, it would be fake as he is not the slightest bit remorseful as he is a legend in his own mind who can do no wrong. Nice try at being his apologist, but people are repulsed by this moron and are venting their displeasure, as they should.
No one needs to get over it Andrew.
For years this vile man and his co-host have made a fortune from degrading listeners and others.
Their party is over.
Australia has had enough.
I agree it’s time to let this drop. Keeping up the pressure – or firing KS – will only turn the bozo into some kind of martyr. Far better to let the market speak. The loss of high profile sponsors will have seriously damaged his program, and his commercial viability on both radio and TV. Now it’s simply a matter of waiting for his natural boorishness to shine through again, which it inevitably will. He’ll eventually self-destruct – nothing is surer.
Funny how the media is allowed to have a go at Kyle and call him a money hungry d***head but Kyle isnt allowed to return serve – give the guy a break – anyone ever heard of free speech
The white ribbon? Are you serious?
This is beyond the joke now.
Kyle mouthed off, he apologised – what more do you guys want? His head on a stick?
Congrats to the media, and yourself David, for blowing things Way out of proportion. Bravo!
Sandilands abuse to Rove was really low too..Rove had just finished a pleasant interview with he and Jackie O when Sandilands slammed Rove and said similar things about him that he said about Stephenson..Rove didn’t reply to the press about the remarks as he didn’t want Sandilands to get more publicity
Holden and Telstra have a lot of spending power, there will have to be some fall out from this for Kyle.,
Well said Andrew O’Keefe. This man is not funny and the less we see and hear of him, the better.
He is a lesson in what not to be as a person.
News.com.au online editor just called Kyle a pig on Sunrise. It seems anyone can call Kyle anything and get away with it. I do think Kyle went too far but how the media being a bit more balanced in their reporting. Was there an outcry when Hughesy salled Kyle a joke on the Logies a few years ago when millions were watching. It must of been very embarrissing for Kyle.
David – please stop reporting on this. I normally agree completely with your editorials, but this has been blown way out of proportion. The fact is the News Ltd journalist wrote a piece that was obviously slantered against Kyle. It was not simply a report on how poorly the ratings were. She raised the previous radio instances when he was suspended etc.
He should be entitled to respond to the pot shots that were made by the journalist, irrespective of whether the writer was male or female. Sure, his remarks may have been over the top, but he is a shock jock everyone. That is what he gets paid for. I don’t understand how Kyle is always taken to task about these sort of things, but the likes of Ray Hadley and other AM shock jocks get to say the same if not worse and they do not get the media hype.
Of course Ch 7 should stay silent. There is no news to report. And as for everyone now linking this to ‘White Ribbon Day’, what a load of nonsense. There has to be better stories to report.
Everyone needs to get over it..
I would hope ACMA would do more than give him a wet bus ticket over his comments, but that would be wishful thinking.
While I agree with your sentiments, Southern Cross Austereo should also be taken to task over their sounds of silence.
But those in their ivory towers love it when they become the centre of attention… for whatever the reason.
Mich, Kyle abused the Journo and focussed on her gender, that’s not having your say. That’s verbal abuse. The Journo based her observations about Kyle & Jackie O’s show; the independant ratings breakdown, that’s how the media works: varciously, but legitimate. However Kyle went balistic at work. In any other work place that would be unacceptable and in the entertainment world his “performance” was unprofessional. I hope she takes him for defamation or libel or both, but someone needs to do something, Kyle is like the mad uncle at the wedding: embarassing.
Fire him, let the bogans have a cry but it’s the right thing to do.
Totally agree with you. Kudos to Ten for acting so swiftly in 2009 and dumping this sorry idiot’s butt from Idol. Seven is showing a remarkable lack of gumption, but the Sydney paper reports this morning that Seven are reviewing his position with them. He would be no great loss from the AGT panel, there are a zillion people who could take his place on the panel and the show wouldn’t miss a beat.
Well done to those sponsors for dumping the Kylie and Jackie O show. It’s only bogans that listen to that rubbish anyway. There’s better places to put your ad bucks.
the journalist was free to have her say, kyle is just having his.
Good on Andrew O’keefe! I’ve never had much time for him, but he has definitely gone up in my estimation with that comment.
Kyle, on the other hand, has once again lived down to my expectations of him…
Why would they do anything. They picked him up when TEN dropped him. They basically endorsed his actions. And it looks that, unless they do something, they will continue that endorsement.
He deserves no air if he thinks he can say these things about anyone in a public arena. Keep it in your head.