Not many announcers would be game enough to openly criticise decisions made by senior management on air, but that’s what Ray Hadley did last Thursday morning on 2GB, according to a report in The Australian. (subscription required)
Apparently management of Fairfax Radio has upset the MRN stars Alan Jones and Ray Hadley.
The report under the heading Macquarie Blow-Ups, suggests that their ire was fanned by a bus-back campaign, featuring the pair, that was commissioned by COO Adam Lang without consulting them.
Neither did he consult high profile adman and major shareholder John Singleton, says the report.
Listening to the audio, Hadley did not mention 2GB Management, he took it out on the advertising person “with the piercing, ponytail and the porche,” who came up with the concept. He called the ads “a waste of money.”
Mr Lang has long favoured bus-backs as a cost effective form of advertising radio talent having famously commissioned the Ugly Truth campaign for the John Stanley and Garry Linnell Breakfast Show on 2UE in February 2014.
Although that campaign was deemed a success, we understand that Messrs Jones and Hadley were unimpressed with the photos used and the wording of theirs. Hadley calling the ads “stupid.”
The first people to use Bus Backs were FUNTASTIC 2UW in 1972 who had Malcolm T Elliott on the back of over 100 Antlantean Double Decker buses with his hands around his mouth saying
IF YOU COME ANY CLOSER I WILL GRAB YOU FOR BREAKFAST.