Sandilands: I don’t do sorry, aIthough I went too far. But worrying about sponsors isn’t my job
Kyle Sandilands has given his first detailed interview since the furore over his attack on News Limited journalist Alison Stephenson. It will appear in tomorrow’s edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine.
In last year’s on air outburst on 2Day FM, he described the journalist as a “piece of shit” and made personal comments about her appearance.
According to a preview of the article published in The Australian today, Sandilands says: “I don’t really do sorry,” before conceding that he did go too far.
Sandilands also appears to claim in the interview that his comments were a reaction to a story by Stephenson being unfairly critical about bad ratings for his TV show.
He told The Australian: “We put it on and the ratings weren’t bad, not for that time of night, and then they start falling because people go to bed or whatever, and then I see what News Limited has written, and it’s all ‘oh, Kyle’s show was a big failure.”
However, Sandilands’ attack on Stephenson actually aired two and a half hours before the ratings were released. Stephenson’s story had not discussed the ratings, but rather initial comments on social media about the show by viewers.
(Update: see comments below from The Australian’s Caroline Overington for further context on this)
Reaction to Sandilands’ comments led to sponsor Holden and a string of advertisers pull their support for the show. This year, new sponsor Jenny Craig pulled out after just one day. In the interview with The Australian, Sandilands says that worrying about sponsors is not part of his role. He says:
“People seem to think I spent a lot of time worrying about (it) but I basically don’t think about it, because it’s not my job to go out there and get sponsors.”
“I don’t do sorry” wow, what a great guy. He must be so perfect that he never has to say sorry or have no respect for people that he feels like he never has to, even if he makes a mistake.
I am sorry but being commercial minded is important for someone in his position. Without the advertisers they have no show. Unless he thinks he works for Triple J who i am pretty sure wouldn’t touch him.
I will read it though tomorrow to make sure i am not being too harsh and if I am, I will be sure to say Sorry.
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“I don’t do sorry”???? Winner! In the fact of a public uproar he would go and say something as stupid as that. Austereo are you people crazy, he’s just told you and the rest of anyone beyond his mental age capacity who can actually read, he doesn’t “do sorry”!!! Get it, he doesn’t do it. So wait are you waiting for the next time he DOES DO something and then doesn’t “do sorry” AGAIN! Oh please wake up and stop acting like him, stupid!!!!
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It’s not his job to worry about sponsors? Oh, that will make agency’s want to use the show more.
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Hello Tim, hope you’re well,
My understanding of what Kyle said was: he didn’t think his Channel Seven show was all that bad, and he took umbrage when he saw the News Ltd story .. “oh, Kyle’s show was a big failure ..”
He never suggested to me that he was responding to the report being “unfairly critical” about the ratings.
After all, Ali’s story was filed before the ratings came in, and Kyle spoke before the ratings came in.
I agree that paragraph is misleading (it’s the word “then” that is troublesome, but people don’t always speak perfectly) … but I have the benefit of having heard Kyle at some length on the topic, and I don’t believe that’s what he meant.
He meant: I did the show, and then News Ltd published a story saying how lousy it was, when it actually wasn’t lousy, it did fine for that timeslot, and I went off my head.
Best,
Cx.
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I hope tomorrow’s article isn’t a puff piece.
This man has a long history of insulting and upsetting people.
To make a threat to ” hunt down” a young woman was the last straw.
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Is this story still going on? Australia, when did you turn into such thin skinned little whingers??
This has more to do with a witch hunt on Sandilands than sticking up for a poor News LTD Journo.
Small town stuff. It really is. Get a life.
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James L – I agree! Can we all please just move along here?
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Who is doing his PR? Jeeeeez they should be fired. So should vile Kyle.
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I don’t think this is so much about a witch hunt on Kyle Sandilands but more about Australian’s not understanding how someone who continues to go the bit too far without any remorse for what he has done or said been kept on the air…he threatened to hunt down a journalist and in the past has even questioned an underage girl on the air about her sex life…I think perhaps it is time for a new rein for the 2day.fm breakfast team!
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He’s such a class act.
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can someone actually talk about the audience. what are they doing, have they grown in anticipation of the next outburst or flown the coup being as upset as the industry.
ultimately its them that decide his future not advertisers (directly), who actually should be using the answer to the above to make sponsorship decisions
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I hope tomorrows article isn’t a fluff piece too. Public sentiment towards Kyle is not good and Austereo know it. They have lost over 80 companies financial support since this happened. 20 of those in the past 9 days since he came back on air. Many people don’t want him influencing young listeners and the advertisers certainly don’t want to be associated with him!
Have to say surprised to see this article coincided with the return of Commonwealth Bank and Vodafone ads on the web page. What’s up with that?? Both of these companies have publically stated that they do not want to be associated with Kyle. Is this yet another incidence of Austereo’s advertising people filling in gaps with company ads who have repeated asked them be withdrawn?
With news that Kyle is now facing an ACMA investigation over his on air conduct back in November. I am personally wondering if next we will see Austereo facing questions in regard to their own ethical conduct.
Hmmmm it is not a pretty story!
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Kyle is just a personality.
I dont personally listen much to his programs, but obviously we cant please all the people in the world. There are peeps who still watch his show.
Get on with life.
As if you had never done/said anything wrong and not been sorry about it cos you think you are right?!
And it is true that getting sponsors is NOT his job! If so, he would be the sponsorship manager!
Come on… stop being such narrow minded people.
We’ve all made mistakes.
Stop being like the Pharisees asking Jesus to stone a woman who has committed adultry, yet would not dare pick up the stone cos they too have sinned and thus cannot judge.
Less judgments, more peace in this world!
Take a chill pill!
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Yeah that’s why the ratings for your show were terrible Kyle – because people went to bed. It wasn’t that it was unwatchable, purile, base drivel.
No, not at all!! Keep up the stellar work pal!
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Dear Chris, it’s not a puff piece, although I accept it’s not for me to say.
Dear Bob, we don’t yet know what the audience makes of it. Complete ratings post the blow-up aren’t yet in.
Best,
C
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When will Australians stop encouraging and supporting this tosser? What a great role model he is for our younger generation.
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It might be someone else’s job to get sponsors – but it’s his job not to lose them! FIRE him Austereo!
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Lets face it, we need Sandilands to show us where the bottom is, as an example to our children of a truly repulsive human, as an example of someone who has manged to slither into the limelight despite having no talent, as a model of how not to treat women, and an example of the unfathomable stupidity of some people, particularly women, who still speak up for him.
May he live forever and then turn white in the sun.
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The PC brigade out in full force today.
I personally think he’s a tosser, so I don’t listen to him. Simple.
Why people care so much is beyond me.
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Well there’s now a formal investigation into VileKyle’s remarks.
It will be interesting to see what sanctions are applied to a public figure with a large audience who has made it OK for people listening to him to treat others with no respect.
It is more of a worry that he is allowed to remain on air if his audience remains large. Is this the type of behaviour that we wish emulated across society?
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I just don’t understand Austereo?!?
It’s not ok to outwardly negatively comment racially in media towards a specific nationality, it’s not ok to outwardly comment in a homophobic fashion towards people who have a right to choose their own sexuality. So how can you make it ok and support absolutely vile degradation of women on your show by an absolutely vile individual. How is it ok to sit back and let somebody like Kyle Sandilands call a women a fat slag, (and that’s not the worst of his insults), you all have mothers and sisters, would you sit back and allow somebody call your mother a fat slag???????
Enough is enough, I’m embarrassed for you. Call it a day and sack this man, he’s bringing you into disrepute. It’s not like there aren’t other more talented people out there to take his place!
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Sandilands can’t be ignored any longer.
His threat to “hunt down ” a young woman down was almost criminal.
Ignoring him is not the way to go.
Speaking up is the only moral thing to do
and lets remember he is not number 1 in the Sydney ratings.
He’s number 3, well behind Alan Jones and ther ABC
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Interesting that CBA and Vodafone asked Austereo to pull their ads and yet they are being run still… Are Austereo that desperate? Is it even legal? Do Austereo have any paying advertisers left?
The Austereo webpage for Kyle and Jacki O looks very blank now and it seems to me that the companies who are advertsing on the show/website are increasingly smaller companies each day (maybe at huge discounts?)..
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Its fascinating that this “detailed interview” did not actually appear in the print article I have before me, which merely states that for this profile “Sandilands refused to talk”. What happened…cold feet?
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I’ve just read Caroline O’s profile of him in The Australian Magazine (good piece), but he’s not quoted and it says he declined to be interviewed. So where did those quotes come from?
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My guess is that the magazine goes to press a few days out, and Kyle changed his mind and gave the interview after it had gone. Hence they were able to get it in the newspaper, but not the mag.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
It just goes to show, all Austereo care about are their ratings – at any cost.
To me, it seems if a racist KKK-touting gun-slinger was going to guarantee ratings, they’d use them. Because if they can allow somebody who calls a woman a ‘fat slag’ and then warrants a case for an AVO by saying ‘I’m going to hunt you down’ to be their poster-boy in 2011/12, who knows what they’ll allow next year.
If Austereo can’t stand up for decency, then I guess the advertisers have to.
Pigs.
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The man hasn’t said anything important in his life, he’s chip wrapper and we’re still crapping on about this. Your Alan Jones’ of this world do far more damage. But we don’t see boycotts from sponsors or e-petitions.
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In a previous life, Kyle Sandilands apologised to me and a client (yes a sponsor on his radio show) for what was at the time, a monumental stuff up. He even tried to make amends (which didn’t really work but the intention was there).
So…do I win a prize or something?
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He is very fat and porky.
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He also asked a 14 year-old if being raped was her first sexual experience, but there wasn’t this sort of outcry. I’m not defending what he said, far from it. But why are the sponsors pulling out now and not before? And why is there a sustained push from the media now and not before? Is it because a journalist, ever the beacon of free speech (until someone responds to their criticism with criticism), got attacked? When did a grown woman become a more sympathetic figure than a 14-year-old girl? Smacks of “the night we called it a day” if you ask me. It amazes me how journalists always jump to the defence of their own, like when cops work harder to catch a crim after a fellow cop is shot.
Having said that, the guy is a first-grade deadshit.
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Hey Eyeroll Extraordinaire,
After the ‘rape incident’ Kyle was sacked from Australian Idol and the ACMA launched an investigation. (pffft) A 7 second delay was implemented so that something like that might not ever happen again. Good to see Austereo have got their finger on that delay button, not!
I think that the campaign has had such an impact (90 sponsors now withdrawn, 30 since he returned on 16th Jan) because people are just over him. He has a history of offensive behaviour etc.
If you are interested in what we are doing, check out our campaign page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/331298220219718/
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He’s not the first radio buffoon to try and get by on shock rather than talent. There’s always one in every city. I worked with a big fat one that 5KA hired back in the 70’s, ‘Malcolm T. Elliott’. They signed him because he was from Sydney and had a name…a month later, we were going over his contract with a magnifying glass, looking at how to fire the git. Kyle and his empty headed sidekick (The epitome of a ‘Blonde’), will be gone soon enough. Attitude never trumps stupidity. Radio is a business and Sandilands is cancer to their bottom line. They’re probably going over his contract right now with a microscope. Hopefully, he’ll get a gig appropriate to his level of talent, just like Elliott. He was last seen back in Sydney…driving a cab.
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INTERESTED IN THE ETHICS AUSTEREO WHO ARE NOW PUTTING ADVERTISEMENTS UP WHEN THE ADVERTISERS HAVE SPECIFICALLY AND PUBLICLY WITHDRAWN THEM! GOOD MOVE…LOVELY TO SEE YOUR STANDARDS SO TRANSPARENT, AUSTEREO!
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