After finding the Kiis network repeatedly broadcast “vulgar” and “deeply offensive” content, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) is bringing out the big guns against the Kyle & Jackie O Show.
Acma on Wednesday published a notice of intention to impose an additional licence condition on Kiis, a regulatory tool not imposed on a licensee since 2Day FM’s infamous royal hoax call in 2012 to a London hospital where Kate Middleton was a patient.
Last month, an investigation found a total of seven breaches of decency rules as well as breaches of the complaint handling rules across Sydney’s Kiis 106.5 and Melbourne’s Kiis 101.1, owned by the Australian Radio Network (ARN).
The licence condition is that for five years the program must comply with the commercial radio code of practice and must not broadcast content “which is highly offensive to an ordinary reasonable listener or which contains strong and explicit sexual references”.
ARN, which has 21 days to respond, is also required to commission an independent audit of the media company’s governance framework within six months and implement the recommendations.
ACMA’s decision comes as the show has faced scrutiny over the last year in Senate estimates and through a Guardian Australia investigation.
In March, Acma found Kyle & Jackie breached decency rules by broadcasting explicit sexual content, which included “sustained and vulgar graphic sexualised descriptions” which were a breach of broadcasting standards.
But on his radio show on Thursday, Sandilands was having none of it, threatening to walk off the job and suggesting the complaints against the content were from “pearl-clutchers … [who] don’t like me telling dick jokes”.
“Some people that never listen to this show have made a group of activist haters who force people: ‘Hey, complain about this show, I know you’ve never heard it, but this guy is a misogynist gay-hating pig’, that’s what they’re saying about me, which I believe is completely false,” he said.
“So, this has left me in a weird position, what do I do? Do I bow down to the fake haters who want to control free speech?
“I’m in this position where do I just think: it’s not worth the fight, I might as well just hang up the headphones, finish this, I don’t need a fight. I can finish work today and live happily ever after, raise my child, maybe buy a castle in France and be one of those guys that are continuing to render an old shitter for the rest of my life.”
Courtroom drama
The penalty from the regulator comes as Kyle and Jackie O narrowly avoided being charged with contempt for potentially prejudicial comments made during the trial of mushroom triple-murderer Erin Patterson.
The Kyle and Jackie O Show was referred for prosecution for contempt after comments made on air during Patterson’s trial, including Kyle Sandilands saying, “Just lock that bitch up”, comments that prompted the judge in the Patterson case, Justice Christopher Beale, to tell a court: “I encourage all commentators to engage their brains before they open their mouths.”
The Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions said in a statement on Wednesday that the matters referred to them for consideration, of contempt proceedings, which included comments made in other outlets, had no reasonable prospects of conviction and none of them had a clear tendency “as a matter of practical reality, to prejudice the fair trial of Ms Patterson on the charges against her”.
NYT plates up mushroom wellington
On the topic of Australia’s most famous mushroom cook, the New York Times food section became a site of Australian consternation and mirth this week, not for the first time.
In September, the NYT posted a recipe for fairy bread, a treat it described as a “much-loved treat with fairly murky origins” that apparently was more likely to be found at Australian birthday parties than birthday cake, leading to a strong and quite bemused reaction from Australian readers.
And Australians returned to the comments’ section this week when the New York Times shared a recipe for mushroom wellington, citing it as a great Thanksgiving meal and a “less exacting yet just as impressive” alternative to the beef variety.
The recipe was clearly triggering for those who spent much of the last year unable to escape talk of beef wellingtons and deadly mushrooms, and who flocked to the comments section, particularly when a post of the recipe was shared on Instagram.
“All Australians wondering if this is satire,” wrote one reader on Instagram.
“Best served on different coloured plates,” wrote another.
“Too soon guys,” wrote another.
News Corp seizes on BBC turmoil
When Sarah Ferguson on a Four Corners program in 2021 accused Fox News of being a propaganda outlet for Donald Trump, the Australian arm of the Murdoch empire responded with force.
There were 45 stories published across News Corp Australia mastheads and a complaint was lodged with Acma.
This week when the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and the head of BBC News resigned, News Corp wasted no time reigniting the fight and accusing the ABC of the same systemic bias the BBC has been accused of.
“All of the issues complained about at the BBC deserve forensic examination at the ABC,” the Australian thundered in an editorial.
“The ABC has been caught committing ‘the same journalistic sin’ the BBC made in its doctoring of a speech given by US President Donald Trump,” Sky News host Chris Kenny claimed.
Kenny returned to the 2021 Four Corners report – titled Downfall: the last days of President Trump – and said the ABC used similar editing techniques as the BBC.
But the ABC’s managing director, Hugh Marks, was not having it, labelling the attempt to exploit the BBC crisis as “opportunistic and false”.
“The grab on Four Corners was used accurately by the program,” Marks said. “The editing did not change the meaning of that section of the speech and did not mislead the audience. The program was consistent with the ABC’s high standards of factual, accurate and impartial storytelling.”
“Downfall is powerful journalism of the highest standard. The ABC is proud of it.”
Charitable works
The Sky News political editor Chris Uhlmann appeared this week at the Senate inquiry on misinformation and disinformation in the climate change and energy debate as a “community support” to the conservation charity Rainforest Reserves Australia (RRA).
Known for its anti-renewables stance, RRA clearly needed the extra support after its submissions to federal and state inquiries were revealed to name nonexistent government authorities and a nonexistent windfarm.
A Guardian Australia investigation found the submissions cited scientific articles that the supposed publisher says don’t exist.
Witnesses tried to explain the multiple errors to senators. RRA’s vice-president, Steven Nowakowski, said they were “just a distraction” and claimed “the data itself is absolutely accurate”. As this exchange was taking place, Uhlmann jumped in and asked if he could make an observation. “I’m interested in the prosecution of an organisation which just wants to keep trees in the ground over errors,” he said. “Are you interested in the work of this organisation? Are you interested in the trees that they’re trying to save?”
The Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah replied: “I am interested in process and your credibility.”
Uhlmann has had an interest in the group for a while, writing in recent months about how RRA was the only group to have produced detailed maps of the scale of the land clearing necessary to deliver renewables.
Fine, just don’t say it
The government has announced what looks like good news for the Australian news media, saying Meta and other tech companies who refuse to sign content deals with Australian news outlets could face millions of dollars in penalties under a new levy – but don’t call it a fine.
The new rules are being designed to force payments from platforms opting out of the Morrison-era news media bargaining code, such as Meta, which owns platforms including Facebook and Instagram and has refused to sign new deals under the existing code.
Tech companies can avoid the existing arrangements by withdrawing news content entirely from their platforms.
But the assistant treasurer, Daniel Mulino, told reporters on Thursday that the proposed legislative changes would attempt to close that loophole, and impose “incentive payments” on platforms that don’t opt in to commercial agreements with news outlets.
Under the proposed changes, tech platforms would either have to pay a percentage of their total revenue generated in Australia, or just revenue from digital advertising, if they refuse to sign content deals.
“If they don’t want to enter into agreements, that is where the incentive payments will be levied,” Mulino said.
“Incentive payments” was the buzzword of Mulino’s press conference, but when pushed by the ABC as to whether “incentive payments” might also be called fines, the assistant treasurer demurred.
“I wouldn’t use that term,” he said.
Mulino also refused to put a timeline on when this all might become law, saying there was a deadline of 19 December for responses to the consultation paper but as to when a bill might come before parliament, he said: “I don’t want to try to put timelines on our response to the submissions or how long it’s going to take to develop legislation.”
