Southern Cross Austereo denies Hamish & Andy’s ‘psychic dream’ Wet ‘n’ Wild broadcast breached broadcast code

Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has denied last week’s “Dream Week” broadcast from Sydney waterpark Wet ‘n’ Wild breached the Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) advertising code because it was not a “sponsored segment”, despite admitting the station has a broader “commercial arrangement” with the theme park company.

For the past few weeks SCA’s nationally syndicated radio duo Hamish Blake and Andy Lee have been talking about a “psychic dream” Hamish claimed to have had about the duo hosting their last show of the year from an “under construction waterpark in Sydney’s west”. After more than a week of build-up, where the still under construction Wet ‘n’ Wild was a central focus of their show, Hamish and Andy broadcast an outside broadcast from the Park on Friday.

The CRA advertising code requires: “Advertisements broadcast by the licensee must be presented in such a manner that the reasonable listener is able to distinguish them, at the time of the broadcast, from other program material.”

But a spokeswoman for the broadcaster said the station had generated the idea entirely itself and that it was not part of any commercial arrangement and therefore not subject to the rules.