Media Unmade – Chapter seven: Dead Air
Welcome to the latest edition of the Unmade podcast. Today’s edition features another free extract from the audio edition of my book, Media Unmade, which is published by Hardie Grant and available online and in book stores.
In this final chapter of Act 1, we explore the Australian radio industry at the first half of the previous decade. It was a time when Austereo’s two networks, Triple M and the Today network were dominant. Hamish Blake and Andy Lee’s national drivetime show had become a once-in-a-generation phenomenon and Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson’s new pairing was starting to hit its stride, first with the Hot 30, then with Sydney breakfast.
But the takeover of Austereo by Southern Cross Media signalled a change of culture. As Kyle Sandilands later described it, the company went from the handshakes and cowboy boots of the Kirby family, to the corporate outlook of accountant Rhys Holleran.
And Australian radio kept being hit with controversies. That included Kyle & Jackie O’s infamous lie detector segment in which a teenage girl was quizzed about her sexual assault, and then Sandiland’s “piece of shit” on air attack on a female journalist. Over at 2GB, Alan Jones was beginning to experience the growing power of social media to create advertiser boycotts.
