I must admit I am rather amazed by the fuss caused about the story yesterday about Rob Thomas being on the Kylie and Jackie O show this week when they also humiliated a 14-year rape victim. The story yesterday clearly stated that the Thomas interview had been pre-recorded earlier in the week. He had nothing to do with that interview. He just happened to be the high profile celebrity on the show this week.
The point was how far in the gutter a once credible radio station had gone for sake of ratings. Kyle Sandilands would have been clapping his hands and clicking his heals today because of the publicity the outrageous stunt has received.But please, don’t go too hard on Kyle. He is only Austereo puppet. Austereo has a long history of this type of stunt. How do I know? Because I worked there.
Today, Austereo executive Guy Dobson not only showed no remorse, he tried to justify what had happened. In The Age he is quoted as saying ,‘‘we’re not on a time delay, but even if we were, I wouldn’t have dumped the segment. There was no breach of any radio code. What I’m most annoyed about is that some of the press have jumped on this and made it out to be a stunt and a ratings ploy.’’
He then further disregarded humiliating a 14-year rape victim and justifying the segment by saying, “we probably do better due diligence on that segment than most people ... We had our checks and balances up front. We wrapped the thing up and we offered counselling”.
Let’s look at station’s history. When I was at Austereo I was ordered to put a fake phone-call in the program Pillowtalk where the caller would use the “C***” word.
In the same program, host Dr. Feelgood was told to call a sex scene like it was a sporting match. Dr. Feelgood (Sally Cockburn) refused.
Humiliating a 14-year rape victim live on air is not surprising for this company. It has a long history in these stunts. The mental abuse it put a 14-year girl through yesterday was just the lowest of the low.
It was indeed unfortunate Rob Thomas happened to be spruiking his new album on a show run by the puppet Kyle. I know Thomas had nothing to do with the Kyle and Jackie O show’s vile programming piece. The Undercover story yesterday did not even suggest that.
Let this just be a word of warning to visiting celebrities who may be asked to appear on that show. This is the type of thing that will be happening around you.
