2GB considering appointing censor button to veteran host Alan Jones
Less than three weeks after he was issued with a “final warning” by management over his use of violent language towards New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, controversial 2GB host Alan Jones is set to face a humiliating new blow.
Confidential
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Alan Jones may soon be adapting to a new world order at 2GB with radio management considering the appointment of a “dump jockey” to ride roughshod over the veteran broadcaster — the first such censor attached to Jones in his 30-plus year radio career.
Following the fallout from Jones’s comments regarding New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — and an advertising boycott expected to cost the Macquarie radio network upwards of $4 million — the radio star’s bosses are considering measures to prevent Jones offending or alienating his audience and advertisers in the future.
The latest move comes less than three weeks after Jones was issued with a final warning from management
over his use of offensive and violent language about women.
Top of the list is a “dump jockey” — a panel operator who listens intently to a radio program and hits a switch to mute or censor any commentary that might be considered too offensive, provocative or legally sensitive.
Such an appointment would be at the discretion of management and would likely be a radio employee independent of Jones’s current production team, something not expected to sit well with Jones.
All of Jones’s producers have been trained to operate the dump switch which is supported by a seven-second signal delay — a buffer — but are thought to be too closely affiliated with Jones to dare touch the button.
AUSTEREO management was forced to insist upon the use of a dump switch at 2DAYFM in 2009 after breakfast host Kyle Sandilands, now at KIISFM, upset his audience, prompting an advertiser boycott and a suspension for Sandilands after a teenage rape victim admitted her rape as part of a radio stunt.
At the time, broadcaster Steve Price, now Jones’s stablemate, told this newspaper: “It’s a simple process and when done as it should be, the audience simply has a few seconds of silence and a professional broadcaster can usually recover the situation and repair the damage.”
It’s believed an internal investigation at 2GB has focused largely on why none of Jones’s staff hit the dump switch when Jones called for PM Scott Morrison to “shove a sock down” Ardern’s throat.
2GB boss Adam Lang did not respond to this column’s call yesterday.
Jones meanwhile was seen deep in conversation with Opera House CEO Louise Herron on Friday night before Melinda Schneider took the Opera House stage for her A Farewell To Doris Day performance. Jones was accused of bullying Herron on his radio show in 2018. He later apologised.