Advertising giants including Telstra, Holden and Vodafone have severed ties with the Kyle and Jackie O breakfast radio program following Kyle Sandiland's personal attack on a journalist.
Medibank, Blackmores, Crazy John's, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys and Fantastic Furniture have also pulled advertising from the Southern Cross Austereo station, 2Day FM. The advertisers have all used social media to confirm the move after facing pressure from Twitter and Facebook users.
The Federal Government and GIO Insurance have reportedly also deserted Sandiland's programs.
Telstra distanced itself from Sandilands just after midday, tweeting: "#Telstra to pull ads from Kyle Sandilands breakfast program and Take 40 - recent comments do not reflect Telstra values".
Holden, a sponsor of the radio program, confirmed yesterday it will no longer support the radio show after initially expressing disappointment with Sandiland's behaviour yesterday.
A statement from Holden said: "We believe the show is no longer in line with Holden's core values and as a result we have taken action to withdraw our sponsorship of the program, effective immediately.
"Recent comments made on the Kyle and Jackie O breakfast show do not in any way reflect the views or opinions of Holden and we are very disappointed to hear Kyle's personal attack on a journalist."
Telco Vodafone followed suit, also confirming the news on Twitter: "Seems to be some confusion, we are NOT a sponsor of Kyle & Jackie. Our ads were in the Take40 but we hear you & will be moving those ads out"
Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has declined to comment on the exodus of advertisers, but did release a
short transcript of Sandiland's remarks from this morning's show, which
included the line, "If you took personal offence to it Ally, I'm sorry
to you...". However in the release, SCA neglected to mention that
Sandilands followed this remark on air with, "... but maybe you should
think again before going against certain people."
The shock jock took to the air waves to attack News Limited journalist Alison Stephenson after she posted an article on news.com.au covering negative viewer reaction to Seven Network television program Kyle and Jackie O Night With The Stars.
Sandiland said in his on-air tirade against Stephenson: “Some fat slag has already branded us a disaster … What a fat bitter thing you are, you deputy editor of an online thing. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. You’re a piece of shit … You are supposed to be impartial, you little troll … Yeah, and your blouse, You haven’t got that much titty to be wearing that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth, girl, or I will hunt you down.”
The television program started on Monday night with an audience of 1.4 million viewers, following on from one of the last episodes of The X Factor, but had dropped to around 200,000 viewers by the end of the episode.
Today, Sandilands defended his actions, labelling it as his exercise of free speech. He said on his radio program: "We live in a country of free speech, you're allowed to say what you want and so am I."
In Australia, there is no right to freedom of speech enshrined in the Constitution. However, there is implied freedom of political speech as a result of a 1992 High Court Case involving Capital Television.
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