Loose lips sink ships: Mumbrella editor overhears something she shouldn’t

This week, Mumbrella editor Vivienne Kelly became part of the story when she overheard something she shouldn’t have.

In her weekly Saturday morning email she described some unsavoury comments broadcast on 2Day during an OB with Carrie Bickmore and Tommy Little that she attended, but, more significantly, she recounts an overheard conversation that indicates there may be some morale problems in the station’s sales department.

“The event was looking over Sydney Harbour, and could have formed part of a bit of a reset for Sydney’s 2Day FM, which is long past its glory days, and despite slowly rebuilding an audience, is struggling to find and hold its place in the FM landscape,” wrote Kelly.

 
She described how former Idol contestant Axl Whitehead got on stage in the live broadcast and said he was “sweating like a rapist.” She also says Bickmore and Little handled it well and it was probably a good thing that the audience was pretty small on 2Day.
 
“Both Bickmore and Little did a commendable job of moving the conversation on quickly…” she wrote, then recounted an overheard conversation from a 2Day FM Salesperson at the event.

It was rather jarring… to hear a prominent 2Day FM staffer mouthing off, within earshot of journalists (including myself) and presumably advertising and media partners about how much the 2Day FM brand is drowning.
 
‘People think the 2Day FM brand has currency. It doesn’t’, they said at an event which relied on this brand using its currency to promote another brand (Australian lamb).’

Presumably listening carefully by now, she heard more a little later:

“Music for breakfast. It’s just cheaper. That’s it. They’re not game enough to back anyone… It’s utter madness.”

Oops. We hear that the hunt is on internally to find the source of the comments.

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