SCA pulls ads on Sydney’s 2Day FM, but retains them on rest of Today Network
Southern Cross Austereo had pulled advertising on its Sydney radio station 2Day FM until at least Monday in response to a feared consumer boycott of advertisers by consumers angry over the death of a nurse involved in a prank call.
The media company has only dropped ads on its Sydney radio station 2Day FM rather than across the entire national Today Network where the Summer 30 show aired. Today Network stations include Fox FM in Melbourne, B105 in Brisbane, SAFM in Adelaide and 92.9 in Perth.
The move came after the Coles group pulled all of its ads and Telstra was reported to have done the same.
It is not unprecedented for a Sydney radio station to pull its ads in the face of pressure being put on advertisers. 2GB did the same thing in October in the face of the backlash over Alan Jones’ comments abour Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s father having “died of shame”.
A spokesman told Mumbrella that the move was “until Mon at least”. She said it was “out of respect to advertisers as focus has had to be on all people affected”. She confirmed that the move covered only Sydney’s 2Day FM.
News broke of the tragedy early today, Australian time.
It emerged that Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who put through the call from Michael ‘MC’ Christian and Mel Greig, had been found dead, apprently having killed herself. During the call the duo pretended to be Prince Charles and The Queen and persuaded another nurse to share information about the medical condition of the Duchess of Cambridge who was in the hospital with acute morning sickness.
SCA boss Rhys Holleran gave a press conference this afternoon in which he reiterated the company’s condolences but said it had broken no rules.
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Well basically the same people who are voicing their opinion would most likely be laughing along with everyone else had this tragedy not occured. It’s classic mob mentality. I dislike Today FM however have the ability to look at the situation logically and see that it isn’t actually their fault.
Can someone in the know please explain how this works?
1) Broadcaster becomes worried that their major clients will pull ads;
2) Broadcaster pulls ALL ads, including their major clients
3) ???
And only yesterday I was saying how over the “Social Media Backlash” game I am.
hmmm well handled
Atrocious, Puerile, Childish, Moronic, Infantile, Callous, Naive, Ignorant, Heartless, Malevolent, Sadistic, Unkind, Spiteful, Thoughtless, Vicious, Absurd, Drivel, Stupidity, Folly……I could go on. The ‘prank’ which resulted in a nurse, wife, mother committing suicide because she had been humiliated around the world, has made Australians look ridiculous and cruel. Michael Christian, Mel Greig and Sydney’s 2Day FM Station, Rhys Holleran…Shame on you. Broken no Rules? How about the rules of decency? What was funny about a young woman suffering severe morning sickness? What was funny about humiliating a dedicated professional? Have people learnt nothing from the media hounding Princess Diana to death? Hope they can live with it.
Rhys Holleran fucked this one up.
To say at this time that “prank calls as a craft in radio have been going for decades and decades, they are not just part of one radio station, or one network or one country, they are done worldwide” is pathetic.
The only way to deal with this fallout is to utterly acknowledge it and apologise profusely and unreservedly. Then make a LARGE contribution to a hospital or children’s charity, and issue a new code preventing “prank calls” relating to any hospital or other medical patient, anyone recently bereaved, anyone known to suffer physical or mental health complain, and anyone with close relatives in a similar situation.
This is not a time for defensiveness, excuses or attempts at mitigation. It doesn’t matter if the tragedy couldn’t have been foreseen. It has happened, and Holleran and his company need to take it on the chin.
Pranks can be cool if they’re clever. This one wasn’t.
It had 2DayFM dross written all over it.
The two amateurs who perpetrated it could well be smart-alec puppets
dancing to the station’s drum beat…if so, they’ve been sold out.
We’ve been told they’re ‘shattered.’ We’ve also been told their cheap prank has
‘broken no law.’ Yet it can be said to have broken a moral law.
It led to a human tragedy… but it’s being excused because radio pranks
‘have been around for decades.’
So that makes it okay when one runs off the rails?
It’s possible that the sad whiz kids at the centre of 2Day’s latest star turn will be
publicly rapped over the knuckles then kept on ice until the winds of outrage blow away.
They’re now international ‘celebrities’; contentious enough to be given a build-up
to be the next Big Two when the current models clap out…
Nobody stays at the top forever…not in the big money game of commercial radio.
As for the major advertising cancellations; you’d have to hope the outrage is sincere…
It may be cynical to suggest that they’re cashing in too: but why not?
If the band’s playing a hit song, it takes no effort to play along.
If this affair were not so heartbreaking, it wouldn’t be worth a second look…
As it is, it’s mocking this country and everyone who calls it home.
Penguin Alert: the way it works is that by the network pulling ALL ads from 2Day, they regain some degree of control of the PR agenda. Otherwise the stories that would run for days would be ‘Advertiser A pressured to pull ads’ followed by ‘Advertiser A pulls ads’, then repeat for B, C, D etc etc… all the while with side stories on the campaigns themselves (mainly social media), media chasing each advertiser to get their own ‘scoop’ and thus adding to the pressure… and NONE of that works in favour of 2Day FM.
So, the network itself cancelling all advertising is a pre-emptive tactic to remove this element of the backlash story, by stealing every the oxygen it needs to take effect.
Sure, 2Day will lose money, but this is a short-term thing and they reason it’s better to lose X amount and know how much you’re losing and try to minimise the brand fallout, than to suffer endless days of news about advertisers pulling out, what is 2Day’s response etc etc.
Then at the appropriate time they’ll just bring the ads back. We saw it with Alan Jones and we’ll see it with 2Day FM.
@Jack B. Nimble, are they really losing money – wouldn’t they just shift this revenue over to another radio or tv asset?