Radio’s race to the bottom

It’s time for the networks to get their acts together — or face real consequences

I do not believe in blanket censorship. I reckon people should be allowed to say what they want to say — but with two caveats.

1. It should not incite hatred or harm to others, and

2. It is done in the appropriate context.

By that second condition, in this specific instance, I mean that you don’t use excessive profanity or discuss adult concepts on free-to-air Breakfast or Drive radio.

And the reason is: children are listening.*

I touched on this in my most recent post, where I was critical of Nova 1069’s “$10K Dump Button Challenge” offering cash to listener who caught out new Breakfst co-host Nikki Osborne “accidentally” swearing.

As I wrote then, if there's a prize, then there will be nothing accidental about the swearing. Since then, I’ve had some conversations, online and in real life, that have made me want to double down on that point.

To my mind, swearing on air is almost always unnecessary — often it's just a weak effort to shock or “spice up” uninteresting content — and it shouldn’t occur when kids are listening. (Sure, some parents swear in front of their own kids, but that’s their choice. It’s not a radio station’s decision to make. I’ll also confess that I’ve been, quite rightly, reprimanded in the past for swearing in a work situation.)

Osborne is billed, among other things, as a comedian; she should be able to be funny or otherwise entertaining without having to swear. If not, her material is too thin. If she genuinely can’t help herself, then put in place an extra-long delay so not even a hint of it goes to air.

This is not just an issue for Nova. Other stations have issues with swearing — a source tells me another Brisbane station places a limit on the number of swears each team member can make (IMO, that limit should be none) — and inappropriate topics.

I’m not alone in my feelings about this. I recently asked a young Mum about her radio-listening habits, and without hesitation or any prompting from me, she said she didn’t listen to her favourite music stations when she had her child in the car because of concerns about the content.

There’s a time and place for almost everything, but profanity on a station that children want to listen to (because of the music) during the school run is not appropriate.

If they need an incentive to do the right thing, they should remember that when adults — i.e. the consumers their advertisers want to connect with -- switch off, then it hurts their business.

The Mad [Expletive] Witches campaign is already targetting advertisers on the Kyle and Jackie O Show over concerns about adult content and it seems to be having some effect (particularly in Melbourne).

But it shouldn’t be up to the general public to do this. The people running our media companies should have the common decency and common sense (re. the effect on their bottom line) to act more responsibly.

If they don’t, then it’s time to give the government watchdog, the ACMA, some real legislative teeth and some people willing and able to enforce the law.

Radio licences and the bandwidth they grant are valuable assets that should not be taken for granted.

In a federal election year, we should be demanding solid undertakings on this issue from all sides of politics.

For once, they could show some backbone and not kowtow to mainstream media that is doing social harm. To be cynical, there are votes in promising to protect children.

How about some “watershed” periods across the day (in Breakfast, Drive and early evenings) where the content is enforceably child-friendly?

I challenge the radio network bosses and our politicians to respond.

*Saying a show “is not meant for children” is not good enough when it’s aired at a time and wrapped in a context (when popular songs are played) that children are likely to hear it.

Disclosure: Brett Debritz used to work in radio and generally doesn’t believe in heavy handed government regulation but also thinks some stations won’t lift their game until forced to do so.

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