Why Nine’s misleading 60 Minutes move could cause ‘long-term pain’

For days last week, Channel Nine used a simple trick to get viewers tuning in to 60 Minutes last night - but it’s come back to bite them.

For days last week, Channel 9 teased its exclusive Kyle and Jackie O interview with one question, delivered via an ominous voiceover: “Is this loudmouth of the airwaves about to be silenced?”

The question played over arresting vision of an emotional Kyle Sandilands turning to his radio co-host of the past 20 years and confessing that “there’s a condition that I’ve been diagnosed with I haven’t spoken to anyone about.”

So is Kyle about to cark it? On Sunday night, viewers tuning in to 60 Minutes discovered the truth: The “emotional revelation” was a joke. A fleeting prank played by Sandilands on both his co-host and interviewer Karl Stefanovic, and laughed off just as quickly.

One moment in Kyle and Jackie O’s interview has caused a lot of controversy.

It was an odd choice by Nine to turn the moment into something it wasn’t, given the Kyle and Jackie O’s interview also featured plenty of insight about the ups and downs of their 20 years working together, weathering more than a few potentially career-ending public scandals.

“It was a clickbait promo,” David Knox of TV blog TV Tonight told news.com.au today. “60 Minutes knew he was joking, but led viewers to believe he had been diagnosed with a condition he hadn't told anybody about.”

Knox said Nine could’ve included the moment in their promo, but framed in a different way: “All they really needed to do was tease the same footage by telling viewers there is ‘No prank off-bounds for Kyle’. Viewers were right to call foul on this.”

60 Minutes drew a respectable 698,000 viewers across the five metro cities last night, with some no doubt tuning in to learn about Kyle’s “secret diagnosis”. Knox said there were pros and cons to setting viewers up for disappointment like this.

“Messing with the trust of the audience may come with a short-term gain, but potentially with long-term pain. If you don't deliver on what you're selling, next time viewers may fail to listen to the pitch, and you'd hope that doesn't extend exponentially to the rest of your brand. Do it too many times and you become the boy who cried wolf,” he said.

Indeed, Nine has copped a lashing from viewers over the misleading promo – and even Kyle admitted he was taken aback by the way the interview was advertised.

“I didn’t think they’d promo it like that, as if I was going to die,” he told Jackie O on their radio show this morning.

But he also insisted the prank had come from a place of sincerity. Sandilands claimed he’d wanted to talk about his ongoing mental health issues, but backed away at the last minute and brushed it all off as a joke as he could feel the uncomfortable emotions rising.

Karl Stefanovic said any blowback about the promo was ‘complete BS’.

Stefanovic appeared on Kyle and Jackie O’s show this morning to vehemently defend his network’s decision to sell the story on Sandilands’ “secret diagnosis”. He argued it was fine, because they’d discussed Sandilands’ health issues in another interview that aired as part of the story.

In another segment that aired last night, Sandilands spoke about having high blood pressure. “I, at any time, could have a stroke or heart attack,” he said.

Stefanovic called the backlash “complete BS, because the doctors actually said you could drop down at any second, dead. And you announced during the interview you had serious issues with your health. I don't know why that's a ‘fail’.”

Bizarrely, Stefanovic and Sandilands, two of Australia’s biggest media identities, then agreed that the backlash to the interview in “the mainstream media” had been “their way of getting back at us”.

It’s not the first time 60 Minutes has copped a backlash over the way they promote their shows: the program was at the centre of a social media firestorm in September last year, for another Stefanovic-fronted story.

An explosive promo had promised to delve into how Meghan Markle’s bad PR was causing a “royal crisis” — and how the former actress went from “adored to insufferable” in less than a year.

Katie Hopkins got ample airtime to slam Meghan Markle.

The promo clip went viral worldwide, with celebrities including Jameela Jamil and Mia Farrow slamming the story as “bottom of the barrel” and “distressing and disgusting” before it had even aired.

The reaction when the segment aired wasn’t much better, due to the amount of time Stefanovic spent interviewing conservative British commentator and Meghan Markle critic Katie Hopkins.

60 went the cryptic route with their Crown Casinos investigation.

In July last year, 60 Minutes mysteriously teased “a story so important it can’t be missed”, which they insisted was “set to rock the foundations of Australia”.

“The biggest Sunday of the year,” the cryptic promo announced.

Once the story was finally revealed – an investigation into Crown Casino’s efforts to lure Chinese gamblers to Australias – many viewers weren’t all that impressed.

News.com.au has today contacted Nine for comment.