Triple M defends signing of Brian Taylor, following gay slur comments
Triple M has today defended the signing of AFL commentator Brian Taylor, who made a homophobic gay slur on live television back in July, arguing the mistake should not be held “over his head for the rest of his career”.
The FM station today announced it had poached Taylor across from rival 3AW to lead its Sunday commentary, beginning from next year’s 2015 AFL season.
Commenting on the controversy which saw Taylor taken of-air by 3AW and Seven and forced to apologise, Triple M Group Content Director Mike Fitzpatrick said: “Brian made a mistake during a TV football broadcast.”
“He was counselled and educated by Channel 7 to ensure it won’t happen again. I’m not going to hold a mistake, that he openly admitted was stupid and for which he apologised, over his head for the rest of his career.”
The signing was part of an announcement of which saw Triple M trumpet the poaching of Taylor from 3AW and resign much of its old commentary team including the likes of James Brayshaw, Luke Darcy, Garry Lyon and Danny Frawley.
Fitzpatrick used the announcement to have a crack at rival 3AW which also has rights to AFL commnetary. “Re-signing these superstars re-affirms our commitment to delivering the most entertaining call. We’re stoked to have BT back in the land of the living, on a station that dominates under 60’s, ” he said.
Taylor will head up a revitalised Sunday line-up that includes former team mates Wayne Carey and Wayne Schwass and Jay “Jay-Z” Clarke.
Nic Christensen
Another reason radio-land is an absolute backwater. What is Commercial Radio Australia doing about this? Do they want to align their sponsors and advertisers with bigots and homophobes?
User ID not verified.
Gay slur sounds so inoffensive. He called a footballer a “big poofter” on national television.
Triple M – Sydney’s Home of Rock and Hate Speech.
Triple M – Triple Your Bigotry
User ID not verified.
His apology was half hearted and self-serving at best.
I’m not surprised that there’s a backlash.
User ID not verified.
Backlash? What backlash?
A story on an industry blog? That’s hardly backlash.
If blogs like this stopped re-hashing and backing over stupid comments like BT’s just to create click-bait, we’d all be able to move on – but Oh no. “Let’s bring up the time BT called someone a poofta and make out we’re defeding gay rights”.
Stop talking about it and giving it air.
User ID not verified.
Seriously, the guy did something utterly inappropriate in a forum he should not have, 6 months ago now. He has apologised and hopefully learnt from it. Move on people – nothing to see here.
I suppose the people commenting here having never said anything they regret…
User ID not verified.
The target market couldn’t care less about off the cuff comments beaten up into a story by a lazy, reactionary media. Good get by MMM.
User ID not verified.
Interesting how our society wants to hold even things people apologise for over their head for the rest of eternity. Guess most of us are lucky there aren’t microphones in front of us, otherwise no one in Australia would be allowed to work ever again. The guy apologised, are we suppossed to throw rotten tomatoes at him or something? Excecute him? Sack him? Make him the butt of stand up comedy routines until the next public figure says something…
User ID not verified.
The moral outrage PC brigade is out in force again. Predictable and pathetic.
User ID not verified.
Take your pick from the Wheel of Pathetic Excuses from apologists for every racist or homophobic impulse of bogan numbskulls.
No we don’t all have microphones, we’re not all on air, so even less excuse for those privileged enough to be broadcast to feign ignorance of the responsibility.
And seriously, the ‘PC Brigade’? this surely rates as the dopey equivalent of blaming victims instead of perpetrators.
Oh yes, let’s all ‘move on’, always easier for those who don’t care about how their actions affect other people.
User ID not verified.
Geez Louise. Gays are their own worst enemies. They hold grudges better than anyone. The guy made a mistake, apologised. The only people who care now don’t listen to the footy broadcast anyways. Smart move TripleM.
(PS – I’m a gay man that loves the jockular often bawdy nature of the TripleM call – more entertaining than any of the others. Its football for chrissake, not gymnastics. Its meant to be blokey and bawdy. Thats the point.)
User ID not verified.
We are forgetting one thing here: Brian Taylor is not a very good commentator. He sounds like what we all did back when we were kids playing football in the back yard and commentating our own footy skills. He still peppers his call with calling a goal a “sausage roll” and the middle of the goals the “hi diddle diddle”. This is a great day for 3AW and any other competing station with a footy call.
User ID not verified.
Spot on Ted Wood, terrible commentator….or as BT would say “boy oh boy wow wee”.
User ID not verified.