In a statement emailed to radioinfo this morning, Southern Cross Austereo CEO, Rhys Holleran has indicated that the company will stand behind it’s 2Day FM breakfast team despite residual fallout from an incident in November last year when Kyle Sandilands unleashed on a female News Ltd journalist after she had written a poor review on a TV show he and Jackie O had hosted.
Mr Holleran said, “In light of the recent withdrawal of advertising by Jenny Craig from the Kyle and Jackie O Breakfast Show on 2Day FM, we reinforce that we value our listeners and clients dearly and hold the utmost respect for their opinions and actions. As a business Southern Cross Austereo constantly strives to deliver attractive products for Australians. We are confident the Kyle and Jackie O Show has been positively re-set for 2012 and our teams are committed to ensuring it is both entertaining for listeners and provides an advertiser friendly environment.”
Just 24 hours ago, Jenny Craig was defending its continuing support for the Kyle and Jackie O breakfast show on 2Day FM, telling B&T, “We’re not going to judge Kyle or Jackie O. They made an error in judgment, and have apologised.” But by last night the weight loss heavyweight had buckled to pressure from consumer advocate website Change.org which has raised 32,000 signatures calling for a boycott.
In a statement last night reported on News.com a spokesperson for Jenny Craig said, “We feel sorry we have offended so many people, underestimated the sentiment against Kyle and are clearly upset that we made such a mistake. We have instructed 2DAY FM that our advertising is to be discontinued on the Kyle & Jackie O show, and the rest of their schedule immediately.”
If you don’t know what all the fuss is about, and are unaware of the story leading up to this, click here to get up to speed.
As our Radio Blogger editorial suggested last year, the difficulty for Southern Cross Austereo is that Kyle and Jackie O have solid ratings and if the final survey of 2011 is any guide, their own audience actually increased since those fateful days of November 2011 when Kyle opened his mouth.
It is reasonably safe to assume that most of those damning him and Jackie O (who didn’t actually commit the crime but drove the getaway car) aren’t even 2Day listeners and aren’t in the target market. Yet these non-listeners could end up having a greater influence on SCA programming through their ability to pressure advertisers than actual listeners.
Change.org claims that 60% of advertisers have deserted the show, costing 2DayFM around $8 million so far.
Given today’s statement from the top of the SCA totem pole, it seems that its been decided that it is harder to find talent that consistently rates than to win back advertisers.