Seven’s silence on Sandilands is deafening
Seven's stellar year is about to finish on a sour note if it does not distance itself from the remarks of Kyle Sandilands.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
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reports retailer The Good Guys said, “The Good Guys does not condone the recent actions of Kyle Sandilands and has withdrawn breakfast sponsorship.”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.
65 Responses
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.