Sandilands' fall latest sorry tale in world of shock jocks

Kyle Sandilands. Photo / Getty Images

Kyle Sandilands, the Sydney talkback radio host just back from honeymooning in New Zealand and now "in recess", has joined a long list of shock jocks who have tripped over the lowest common denominator.

Sandilands and 2DayFM co-host Jackie O'Neil Henderson have been pulled from their formerly top-rated breakfast slot while their station completes a review of "principles and procedures", with no specific deadline.

Sandilands was last night also dumped from his judging job on Australian Idol, and neither he nor Jackie O will be included in Thursday's launch of digital radio in Australia.

The pair have been pushed off air by a cyclonic backlash from Sandilands' questioning last week of a 14-year-old girl taken on their show under protest, strapped to a lie detector and quizzed about her sexual history.

When the girl angrily told him she had been raped at 12, Sandilands replied: "Right, is that the only experience you've had?"

Despite a later apology, clumsy explanations and an attempt to blame the row on an unfriendly media, public outrage was joined by politicians, psychiatrists and social workers. The station says he has been placed in recess because of his inability to continue working on air "at this time".

"He's been close to the wind for quite some time and he's a particularly abrasive character who does attract more than the usual share of dislike," Professor Graeme Turner, an expert on talkback radio at Queensland University, said.

Sandilands is a product of a marketing phenomenon that began with a move to self-regulation in commercial radio about 15 years ago, and an FM-driven boom in radio stations that created fierce competition on the airwaves. Stations shifted from mass audiences to targeted segments.

"It doesn't matter if 70 per cent of the [total] audience hates them, thinks they're idiots and doesn't listen to them, as long as the 30 per cent they're pitching to does tune in most of the time," Turner said.

New Plymouth-born Darryn Hinch built a massive following on this formula in the 1980s, peaking with a A$1 million pay packet before overstepping the mark, alienating listeners, doing jail time for contempt and losing his fortune. John Laws founded a multimillion-dollar career on anger, bigotry, attacks on homosexuals and Asian drivers, finally running foul of industry regulations in the "cash for comment" scandal in which he and fellow 2UE host Alan Jones accepted secret commissions for corporate promotions disguised as genuine opinion.

Jones was also found guilty of contempt of court, identified on air a juvenile giving evidence in a murder trial, and accused the Government of naming Aboriginal musician and child educator Mandawuy Yunupingu Australian of the Year solely because he was black. During the 2005 Cronulla riots he urged white Australians and local Pacific Islanders to attack Lebanese youths in a "Leb and wog-bashing day".

Turner said the shock jocks used division and controversy not only to attract core supporters, but also opponents sharing a common level of aggression who called in for an on-air fight.

"Confrontation is just as likely to attract and entertain the audience as having people lining up to say 'yes, you're right'. It's like trying to explain the attraction of wrestling on television. You know that it's all bull, you know it's staged, but you actually like watching the spectacle play out.

"I think talk radio's a bit like that."