For a while, when Alan Jones was at the height of his career at 2GB and Kyle Sandilands was at 2DAY FM, they were, between the two of them, responsible for up to 80 percent of all radio complaints to the ACMA. So, bringing the two most controversial broadcasters of this century together on the KIIS106.5 Breakfast show was bound to be a winner from an EP’s point of view.

From an insurance actuary’s perspective, however, it was fraught with danger of a legal kind. One may as well mix dynamite with an explosive substance and hope no one strikes a match.

Last Friday morning, while Kyle and Jackie O were chatting to Alan Jones about not much in particular, normal transmission suddenly ceased, and a corporate sounding voice cut in to inform us that the show had been officially dumped – blown up, as it were, by the in-studio “censor.”

As I’ve previously observed, “While other stations have a seven second delay (dump) button in the studio so that the on-air announcer can protect the station from random callers, KIIS106.5 employs a 30 sec dump button, controlled by a lawyer, to protect the station from its own Breakfast announcer.”

On this occasion, it took about 10 minutes of filler before Kyle and Jackie returned to the studio to explain that they’d been dumped. They weren’t sure why. But they sure as hell weren’t happy about it.

Kyle confided that, during their outage, he’d called his lawyer who advised him to get out of the studio until the whole thing was sorted. K&J then assured their listeners that they’d be back Monday – “maybe.”

At time of writing, no one outside Kyle & Jackie O, the lawyer, Alan Jones and the rare air in ARN’s C-Suite, knew exactly what was said to cause the dump.

What sounds like good-natured banter with a mild dose of double entendre and innuendo in the delayed broadcast leading up to the dump, offers little insight as to what would trigger the dumping 30 seconds later – or 30 seconds earlier, depending on your POV.

Have a listen to the audio and hear if you can find a clue as to why the interview may have been dumped and expound on your theory in the comments section below.  But remember, here at radioinfo, we have a dump button too.

Start from the beginning if you want to listen to the full chat with Alan Jones or scroll to about 12 mins 20 secs – to listen for clues a minute before the dump button is activated.

Peter Saxon – Managing Editor