Shock jock Kyle Sandilands breached radio code in offensive rant against journalist

KYLE Sandilands' comments about a female journalist were "derogatory and offensive'' and in breach of commercial codes, the watchdog has found.

Kyle Sandilands

KYLE Sandilands' derogatory comments about a female journalist have been found to breach the radio code of practice.

Media watchdog ACMA launched a two-month investigation in January after Sandilands called the news.com.au journalist a "piece of sh**" and a "fat slag". He also told her "to watch your mouth or I'll hunt you down" after she reported on the negative reaction to his TV show the night before.

The shock jock also called her a "fat, bitter thing" and a "little troll" and criticised her hair and clothes, saying, "You haven't got that much titty to be wearing that low-cut a blouse".

Sandilands' remarks came after the news.com.au journalist wrote a scathing review of his A Night With The Stars television show, aired on the Seven Network.

"This was a broadcast that was grossly demeaning, that was deeply derogatory of the journalist," ACMA chairman Chris Chapman told reporters.

"This was vitriol, it was targeted, it was enduring, it had attitude and some menacing words in it, and it was unacceptable," he said.

Mr Chapman said ACMA had "no trouble" reaching a decision to recommend new licence conditions for 2Day FM.

Sandliands' derogatory comments, made on November 22, are believed to have cost his employer, Southern Cross Austereo, about $10 million in sponsorship, with advertisers walking from the 2Day FM's Kyle and Jackie O Show in disgust.

The ACMA has begun formal steps to impose a second licence condition on the broadcaster which would prohibit the station from broadcasting indecent content and content that demeans women or girls.

"The Authority found the comments by Mr Sandilands deeply derogatory and offensive and in all the circumstances a licence condition is the appropriate response," said Mr Chapman.

But Mr Chapman said ACMA found the comments did not breach the code prohibition on inciting serious contempt or severe ridicule on the grounds of gender.

"Although the comments conveyed hatred, serious contempt and severe ridicule on the grounds of gender, they were not considered likely to incite those feelings in others,'' he said in a statement.

Southern Cross Austereo has described the licence condition as "onerous" and says it will pursue "all available remedies" to have it revoked.

"We are concerned that the ACMA's response is disproportionate to the breach of the code," CEO Rhys Holleran said.

"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."

Mr Holleran accused ACMA of overlooking the steps 2Day FM took before the investigation started.

He also said the watchdog had given undue weight to complaints received from people who were not listeners of the program.

"The ACMA has issued no guidance on the licence condition and in light of that, we consider the condition to be unworkable," he said.

Sandilands and Southern Cross Austereo issued an apology three weeks after the attack, and last month Austereo bosses announced that it had put in place a traffic light system to ensure there would be no repeat of the incident.

The shock jock has said he isn't too bothered by the investigation, telling The Weekend Australian soon after it was announced: "There are four or five people on Facebook trying to make it look like millions of people hate me.

"But they aren't people who listen to the show. They are feminists in Victoria or whatever."

Sandilands has fallen foul of the ACMA before. In 2009 the watchdog found the Kyle & Jackie O Show guilty of exploiting a vulnerable girl over a live stunt involving a 14-year-old who was quizzed about her sexual history while strapped to a lie detector.

Sandilands attracted particularly criticism for his response to the girl's distress after she revealed she had been raped.

The ACMA imposed an additional licence condition on Austereo at the time, with chairman Chris Chapman saying "even in these more liberal times, quizzing an under-aged child about her sexual history, for mere entertainment offends community standards".

Sandiland's co-host on the Kyle and Jackie O show, Jackie Henderson, has also finally broken her silence on the on-air attack.

Henderson came under fire for keeping quiet during Sandilands' tirade and the resulting fall-out, with one critic calling her Sandilands' "cackling enabler".

Henderson told Fairfax media she didn't condone Sandilands' derogatory comments but felt she would have been criticised for "saving my own arse" if she had spoken out publicly.

"First of all, when I was laughing at Kyle I certainly wasn't ever laughing at what he was saying about that journalist. I was laughing at his inability to take criticism," she said.

"Now, I know I stayed quiet during that and I definitely do not condone what Kyle said in any way, shape or form.

"I was being pressured to come out and say, 'I don't condone what he said.' But I knew that if I did that I was doing it just to save my own arse. People were criticising me, too, and I wasn't about to beat up on my friend when the rest of the country was, just to save my behind. So I did keep quiet."