Kyle & Jackie O producer Bouchet fired over Batman massacre gags
Kyle & Jackie O producer Bruno Bouchet has been fired by Today FM after making jokes on Twitter about the weekend’s cinema shootings in Colorado. He told Mumbrella today that at the time he did not realise the seriousness of the situation, and had been drinking.
A spokesman for the network said that Bouchet had been terminated because his comments violated the network’s social media policy.
Bouchet, a guest and talent producer, was with the show for two years. His duties included an on air role including the weekend Producers Edition of the Kyle & Jackie O Show.
The jokes were quickly removed. They were spotted by Jocks Journal over the weekend, which wrote on its Facebook page:
“Very, very sad to read Bruno Bouchet’s Tweets (five ‘gags’) on the tragedy in America involving the killing of 12 people and up to 40 injured persons at a Colorado cinema. Bouchet, who is the Guest and Talent Producer on Kyle & Jackie O’s breakfast show, twittered these ‘so called jokes’ just minutes after the news broke. Mate, I think a ‘Twitter’ apology would be appropriate – not to me or your Twitter readers who may be offended – but to the US families who are grieving today over the loss of loved ones.”
Jeremy Simpson, 2Day FM’s Sydney general manager said in a statement: “Southern Cross Austereo has a strict social media policy that all staff must adhere to, and Bruno’s activity on Twitter was in breach of this policy. It is for this reason that Bruno’s employment has been terminated, effective immediately.”
Bouchet – a popular figure within the industry – told Mumbrella:
“What I said was really fucked up. There’s no getting around that.
“At the time I didn’t realise how serious it was and I had had a few drinks.
“I have no excuse. I’m so mad at myself. I’m humiliated and I’m embarrassed. It was a dick move.
“I can’t blame Sourthern Cross Austereo – they had no other choice.
“I really do want to apologise. It was reprehensible.”
While nobody can really argue against the GM’s move, I find it sadly ironic that a producer is fired over five offensive jokes, yet Sandilands is still on air after years of being an offensive boor.
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So this guy gets the flick, but Kyle gets to stay on? Pretty sure he’s made enough vile “jokes” to get fired 5 x over.
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Jesus H Christ – talk about double standards !! Bruno fucked up, he admitted it. Great. We all do it sometimes… But he gets fired for it, while that reprehensible Sandilands is allowed to continue on air !!
That’s it, AusStereo – all your stations are DEAD TO ME !!
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This is not an open forum for an attack (again… sigh) on Kyle Sandilands. I remember Bruno B being in serious poo previously, but scraped through with a warning – this time it’s seeya. Focus your comments on the problem, people.
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What a pity that Southern Cross Austereo doesn’t apply the same strict standards to their “on air ” policy, as they apparently do to their social media policy. If they did, the Australian airwaves would not be continually tarnished by Vile Kyle and the Simpering Enabler.
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This is not the first time Bruno has used Twitter to ‘joke’ about the misfortunes of others in seriously bad timing. Kyle has never done anything as offensive as Bruno. Bruno deserved the sacking and in my opinion Austereo have done a fabulous job of upholding their policy. I never thought I would say that!
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i guess SCA can’t win on this…if they kept him on then they would have been crucified for keeping him on. If they sacked him then it’s double standards. Go figure
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I agree with Mordor.
Double standards at AusStereo are a joke. Keeping Kyle and firing Bruno is ridiculous. AusStereo are off my preset list.
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I have no idea who this Bruno fellow is. Thank goodness by the sounds of things.
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A new producer might bring better manners to the show.
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Prompt remorseful apology . . hope he gets another job soon.
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Did someone just say that Kyle has never done anything as bad as this before?? Are you kidding me? His past is littered with indiscretions that involve offensive comments that were meant to be ‘jokes’ but fell way short. Remember the ‘concentratio camp’ joke that was ridiculously unfunny and very offensive? I’m sick of the double standards that come with being ‘famous’ (if you could even call Kyle that). 2Day FM, you are hypocrites!
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What is this “AusStereo” people are referring to? It is Southern Cross Austereo people, do your research or better still, don’t comment on something you have very little knowledge of.
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Kudos to Bruno for manning up to do such a ‘mea culpa’ – he doesn’t try to blame anybody else, admits he c*cked up and that management did the right thing. Yes, his comments (which I saw) were tasteless but at least he didn’t squirm, he just took it on the chin and that’s that. A bad call to do what he did but he’s accepted it fair and square, which is more than can be said for Kyle and co!
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So 2Day FM sack Bouchet over bad conduct in social media, but keep Kyle on air for bad conduct in Mainstream Media?
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As they Austereo in Tas have decided to put Kyle & Jackie O on at 7pm-8pm weeknights then not many people now listen to their show, we now all listen to Merrick and the highway Patrol on a different station during drivetime 6pm-7pm in Tassie. So I guess it doesn’t affect us much really.
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This show will be gone by the end of the year. Sponsors have stayed well away since the drama of last year and the show will have been hemorrhaging money. They’ve already stopped playing the highlights packages in markets outside of Sydney, and have been trying new hosts like Em Rusciano. Also Kyle and Jackie O’s show does not fly in far more conservative regional markets that SCA would never want to jeopardise. Sure Bruno stuffed up, but Axing him is an easy way to start clearing the decks and save money before reloading with a new show next year.
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To “Am Listener” Kyle had never insulted or been offencive to people that are dead, by a massacre, so, i think your point is invalid.
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@kimmi, @Jaiden – SERIOUSLY???????????? Where the f*ck have youse two bin???
“Kyle had never insulted or been offencive to people that are dead”…. so we’ll just forget the concentration camp joke then will we???
And Kimmi “Kyle has never done anything as offensive as Bruno.” so threatening to hunt down a “fat slag” and sort her out isn’t that offensive then??
Jeez I fear for your sanity with comments like that.
It’s a complete double standard Austereo – @Seriously – it’s not an attack on Kyle it’s showcasing the complete double standards of this rather idiotic radio show and it’s presenters.
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So jokes about the massacre of millions of Jews in the Holocaust is suddenly not a massacre Jaiden? Perhaps you need to read up on a little history.
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Kimmi – I beg to differ. Kyle has been repeatedly offensive on so many counts it’s difficult to even to number them.
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I’m sure this guy won’t have any trouble finding a new job, he did create a Wikipedia page about himself after all.
Bouchet was even kind enough to detail past ‘controversies’ of his time at 2Day FM:
In February 2011, 2DayFM Sydney was pressured to sack Bouchet following comments he made on air during The Kyle & Jackie O Show about organ donation and the fact that he would never even consider donating his own.
After Crikey contacted Bouchet about the appropriateness of some of the content on his website, “Bruno loves boobs”, he removed the website. The website featured images of a man dressed in a fancy dress costume made to look like a used sanitary pad; a video of a man apparently beating up a women in front of her child, and an “anti-Obama sticker slapped on a car featuring the phrase ‘Don’t re-nig in 2012′”, which Crikey deemed racist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bouchet
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I didn’t see the tweets, but I would agree with earlier commenters that it does seem to be a double standard considering some of K&J’s previous activities, particularly Kyle’s abuse and threat to ‘hunt down’ a female journalist after a bad review.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/.....0441aecc4b
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To all the Am listeners…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Zemanek
Wasn’t Stan Zemanek the most complained about radio broadcaster?
I didn’t like Stan’s show, so I didn’t listen to it.
I would suggest you do the say for Kyle’s show.
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We all make stupid mistakes, and it is such in this life that we have the be accountable for those mistakes. However as a business, SCA shouldn’t have double standards, if an ethical code, moral or social media is broken or ignored the same punishment should be handed out across the board.
I’m glad to see that Bruno has been accountable for his silly drunken mistake. We’ve all made them, however, when you’re in the public eye or work in the media, it is essential that we all realise in this ‘global village’ someone is always watching!
I hope Bruno learns from his mistake and sources another job, where hopefully he’ll gain back his reputation as a hard worker, who learned a very hard lesson!
Thoughts to the friends and families of the senseless tragedy that took place this weekend.
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Why does SCA fire Bruno and not Kyle when Kyle has said far worse repeatedly and has cost them huge advertising losses???????
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Unfortunately Kyle’s not going anywhere. He’s been equally offensive on a number of occasions and every time Austereo does the same thing – take him off air, wait for everything to blow over, then quietly bring him back. Seems like behind the scenes people are dispensable but it’s fine for Kyle and Jackie O to be repulsive on air as long as they bring in the ratings and rake in the cash. Just shows what a repugnant media organisation Austereo is.
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Bruno has apologised. Kyle has never apologised.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bouchet
So there’s no barrier to having your own wikipedia article, then?
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Bruno doesn’t make the station as much money as Kyle does.
that’s just the way it is…
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What Bruno said was bad taste, but sometimes we all make mistakes and unfortunately have to pay the price.
Back in the day before “Social Media” controversial and in fact more offensive jokes were unashamedly laughed at.
The comment by Bouchet was not one to be laughed about, but now we are all so “Politically Correct”, that we can’t even express how we feel or who we are in public without being shunted.
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Making a joke out of a massacre is not just “bad taste” or “political incorrect”, it is a massive slap in the face to those who have lost their lives and their grieving families. Don’t blame social media for this one. The blame lays squarely on the idiot who made the offensive comments in the first place. It’s not difficult to successfully navigate twitter/facebook etc. without posting stupid comments. The blame is all Bruno’s.
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@ Berryl Tang – how about you try telling that to the people who have lost loved ones in Aurora. It’s not about you or your chance to have a laugh it’s about having common sense and a little bit of decency to show a little bit of respect.
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@ RM – And what about the jokes that are made about the Holocaust, September 11, and general violence in the world? Should we be bending over backwards to make sure that not a single person is offended?
I don’t actually know what specific words were used, however, I have gathered from the talk surrounding the words that it was probably just bad timing. If the same things were said a year or two from now I highly doubt that anyone would give it a second thought, it would just be ignored like any other unsavoury, “offensive” thing that gets said. When it comes down to it, it isn’t a matter of “bad taste” or “political incorrectness,” it’s about poor timing.
I honestly don’t see why everyone is shitting themselves so much over such a stupid incident. If he had actually been sober I could probably understand, but when you’re drunk you say stupid things. It’s not an excuse, but I highly doubt that anyone in this discussion, including you RM, has managed to escape saying something highly offensive as a result of intoxication.
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Everybody is ‘shitting’ themselves over this incident because we take great offense to it and if we hadn’t then Bruno wouldn’t be facing the consequences he is now. I doubt he would even feel remorse over the tweets beleiveing them to be ‘funny’.
‘Bad timing’ is not why people are outraged with the comments. It is not because the incident just happened that makes it offensive, it is the fact that he has made these disrespectful comments in the first place.
I assure you that if he had been commenting on the Holocaust in the same contempt I would be just as outraged, even though it occured last century.
Not only was it simply ‘bad timing’, it was deeply offensive to those who had lost their lives and disprespectful to their families that are grieving.
And I am NOT, under any circumstances, accepting ‘but he was drunk’ as an excuse
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@Alexia: I’m assuming that you can read as I write this. I’m also assuming that you actually responded to Circling Sharks’ comment. At what point was ‘but he was drunk’ offered as an excuse? I don’t know about you, but it seems blatantly obvious to me that they were pointing out that this wasn’t an excuse for his behavior.
Honestly, I think this whole thing has been overblown to the max, much like an A-bomb. I think that most people have forgotten that you can say something offensive but not inherently believe it. People say stupid things regardless of whether they’re drunk or not, however, saying something doesn’t always mean that you fully, fundamentally believe it. I think people are treating the things he said as being exactly what he believes word for word. For example, I could make a joke about Jewish people and say that they are not as good as me, BUT, I don’t for one second believe that they are actually beneath me in anyway. This is more or less the same thing, ‘bad timing’ and ‘bad taste’, but nothing to be crucified for.
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I had no idea that being disrespectful about people’s loss was all about “good timing” and being drunk… must be some sort of crass trend I’m not aware of. Good to know people like Circling Sharks exist out there for me to avoid…
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You’re really shooting a lot of blanks with that one RM.
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Would anyone actually care to tell me what he said?
I’ve been following this hype-storm since it happened, but I don’t actually know what words were used. I think it would greatly help my understanding of the seriousness of the situation if I knew what he said.
Assuming that you aren’t all just on a witch-hunt without actually having the full story.
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I don’t know, it seems like a lot of people have forgotten who the ACTUAL villain is. There appears to be a massive focus on Bouchet and how horrible/insensitive/offensive he was, but no one seems to be remembering that he hasn’t really done anything wrong. When you compare the actions of Bouchet to say those of the SHOOTER WHO KILLED ALL OF THE PEOPLE WE’RE SO OFFENDED FOR he really has done jack-shit.
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He made the tweets moments after the incident and didn’t know the full extent of the issue. All he saw was ‘Shooting at Dark Knight Premier’. I made a joke too when I read that, because I didn’t know the full extent of the situation, but then deleted it as soon as I realised that it was very serious. Bruno’s done exactly the same thing (I know because I asked him about it) and he has copped this on the chin and not passed the buck at all. He’s a fantastic person and I’d request that the kimmi’s of the world go chase bigger issues.
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@M.Bev – Thanks for posting that.
It actually makes me more confused as to why he is being kicked around as much as he has been. Your testimony only reinforces the fact that this was a silly mistake, that anyone could make, sober or drunk. I’m sure somebody saw your response, for example, and, as far as I know, you haven’t lost your job because of it.
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