Watchdog finds Kyle Sandilands guilty of breaching decency standards #Ausmedia

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Darin Sullivan in Main

Kyle Sandilands has breached decency standards, the media authority has found. It found the comments he made were deeply derogatory and offensive.
Steps have begun to impose a new licence condition on 2Day FM.
From now on Sandilands will be prevented from broadcasting any material that is likely to demean women or girls or face a loss of licence.

ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said his agency’s relationship was with 2Day FM and not with Sandilands himself – an admission that there is little it can do to rein in the controversial host. “We do not play the man we play the ball.”
He said that if Sandilands or any of 2Day FM’s presenters make such remarks again it faces a daily fine of $55,000, possible criminal action and ultimately a loss of its license to broadcast. Though Mr Chapman said this was not “a path we are going down” and that “we have taken the strongest possible action that we can.”

Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said that if ACMA imposed the licence condition, the company would take ‘‘all available remedies’’ to have it revoked.

Southern Cross Austereo chief executive Rhys Holleran said the condition was ‘‘unworkable’’.
‘‘2Day FM’s core audience is women, predominantly young women,’’ Mr Holleran said in a statement.

‘‘2Day FM has built its significant audience over the past decade by broadcasting programs which appeal to women and their interests in a relevant and entertaining way.

‘‘Our difficulty with the proposed licence condition is that terms such as ‘decency’, ‘demeaning’ and ‘undue emphasis on gender’ are broad and ambiguous and mean different things to different people.’’