Stan Zemanek got caught a few years ago for using actors as fake callers. The Kyle and Jackie O show was sprung recently for the same thing, and this week it was Triple M’s Adelaide rumour file in trouble. Former Austereo Adelaide breakfast show host Amanda Blair also wrote a newspaper article alleging that doctoring-up callers is common practice. Newspapers have been whipping themselves into a frenzy on this issue over the last few weeks, and radioinfo has been told the tabloids are now going after talk radio stations to see if they are doing the same thing with bogus callers.
If music stations falsify callers it is easy to claim it is done in the name of entertainment, but if talk stations do the same thing, the threat of regulatory action intensifies because most talk programs are classified by ACMA in the current affairs category and therefore have stricter guidelines regarding the presentation of factual material. Newspaper gossip columns and gossip magazines, which have been faking stories about celebrities for years, by contrast have no such regulatory guidelines.
Amanda Blair wrote this week about bogus callers saying:
“I had to laugh when viewing Media Watch on ABC TV last week. It ran a story about radio station 2DayFM, revealing how a woman named Cindy had rung the breakfast show. Only Cindy and her call were prearranged by the producers. In response to Media Watch inquiries, the general manager insisted Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O were blissfully unaware these callers were fake.
I laughed again when I opened the Sunday Mail and saw how Adelaide’s Triple M breakfast producer was in trouble for the same shenanigans.
“This time it was Barb from Unley who was calling to share her (false) rumour implying Nick Xenophon had contravened parking laws. Of course Barb was also a staged caller, but again we were told the hosts had nothing to do with it.
“Why so much merriment on my part? Well, I used to work regularly with Cindy and Barb from Unley. They used to call me all the time. And did I know they were going to call? Damn right I did. Because half an hour before, I or the producer had called them, fed them their lines and a serviceable punch line.
“If they performed well, they were in the running to win a CD pack and a double pass to any Wallis cinema. One of our girls in sales had about seven different aliases.”
Moving from music to talk formats, radioinfo has spoken to several former talk radio producers who say that bogus callers are occasionally used to “get a topic moving,” but that most talk shows have enough callers to feed the air time, without worrying about seeking extras.
Programs such as 2GB’s Alan Jones and Ray Hadley receive about 60 calls per hour according to a former call screener, who says she was always busy when working on that show. The John Laws show constantly has a full board of calls and often has to call people back to save them hanging on for hours awaiting their turn to talk to Lawsy.
But it is the “critical mass” of a good capital city audience that generates the best callers according to one former producer. Smaller cities do not always yield enough good caller talent, given that only a fraction of listeners (usually estimated at about 5%) ever call a radio station.
Many country radio announcers who have tried to generate serious talkback in their programs have had the experience of callers refusing to ring because they fear their voice may be recognised or their views may lead to controversy in a small town.
Even capital city announcers have experienced the difficulty of the “dry board” at times. When the Stan Zemanek show was off-air in Sydney at times for football broadcasts, and Stan was stuck with only regional listeners, the number and quality of callers was sharply diminished. 2SM’s morning and evening talk shows, which have large numbers of regional listeners, but only a small audience in Sydney, often suffer the same problem.
Is pre-arranging a caller to get the momentum going wrong, or is it just good radio? ACMA spokesman Donald Robertson says the practice may contravene provision 1.3 of the Commercial Radio Code of Practice which mandates that a licensee must not broadcast a program which simulates news or events in such a way as to mislead listeners.
The Adelaide Advertiser quotes a former radio station employee saying the use of bogus callers is widespread: “That’s just the way it works. Calls are doctored up all the time. If the public weren’t saying what we wanted, we would doctor up someone to say what we wanted. We did it all the time”
Amanda Blair says: “Radio people insisting that these programs are completely spontaneous are akin to wrestling managers saying those big soft goofs in the ring are really hurting each other. It’s garbage.”
Is it wrong to fake callers? And is it only really wrong if it is on talk radio? Is calling your mum and asking her to comment in a different league from giving a caller a set script? These questions will only be answered by ACMA if a complaint is received.
Meanwhile, as a post-script to the subject of radio callers, some FM music stations have quietly been installing delay systems so that they will not get caught out again by callers like the prostitute who rang Merrick and Rosso and named Michael Costa as a client. The Costa defamation suit is continuing.