2GB radio shock jock Alan Jones and unrequited political love

Excerpt from A Bigger Picture by former Australian prime minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, April 2020, p.237:

These bad polls made Abbott’s media backers go in harder. After days of demented denunciations from Alan Jones, I agreed to go on his program. On 4 June, the night before the interview, at 5.59 pm, I called him up. We spoke (mostly he spoke) for 31 minutes. I wrote in my diary that night: 

I tried to persuade him to stop this mad jihad against me on the basis that it was (a) utterly baseless and (b) very damaging to the Government, creating issues of leadership all at a time when we were behind in the polls and thus vulnerable. Jones was totally hysterical, screaming (literally) at me. He kept on accusing me of being ‘a traitor, a treacherous schemer’. He said again and again, ‘I love Tony Abbott and I will stand between him and anyone who tries to undermine him and that means you Malcolm Turnbull … You don’t love Tony Abbott.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I am quite fond of him –’ ‘But you don’t love him, like I do,’ screamed Jones. ‘Not like you do, Alan, that’s true,’ I replied. At one point, he started screaming, ‘Don’t you know, everybody hates you, they hate you, everybody, everybody hates you …’ At another point he said, ‘Why aren’t you out there every day selling the Medicare Co-payment?’ I said that it might be because I wasn’t the Health minister. ‘That’s just an excuse!’ said Jones.

Over 110 brands walked away from advertising on 2GB radio due to Alan Jones' misogynistic and violent language

The Guardian, 13 September 2019:

Faced with an advertiser exodus of more than 110 brands, Macquarie Media has written to advertisers promising a review of Alan Jones’ program, which it says failed to meet community standards.

Jones apologised last month to the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, for his comments that Scott Morrison should shove a sock down her throat, but this failed to stem the flow of advertisers, and 2GB and 4BC have continued to haemorrhage revenue.

The chairman of Macquarie Media, Russell Tate, wrote to advertisers on Friday to apologise for the comments about Ardern and “any disruption caused to your company as a result of remarks made by him”.

Alan and I are happy to talk and meet with as many of our advertisers as possible over the next two months to hear your views on how we can best serve your business, but in the meantime, I would be very interested to hear any comments or thoughts which can help us do that.

Jones is already on a final warning after Tate took the unprecedented step of scolding him publicly last month.“This incident has brought into sharp focus the need for all Macquarie Media broadcasters to ensure that the debate they bring to the microphone and the words they use are, at all times, respectful and reflect the standards expected today by our listeners, our clients, and the wider community,” he said......

Does the Nine-Fairfax merger mean the writing is on the wall for Alan Jones?

With an ageing listener demographic, big brand unhappiness with 77 year-old wannabee politician Alan Belford Jones’ bitter, angry, bigoted, biased on-air persona, a string of defamation payouts by 2GB on his behalf and, his radio contract coming up for renewal in June 2019, has Alan Jones finally reached his use-by date?

The Australian, 12 November 2018:

Alan Jones has been sensationally disciplined by the board and management of Macquarie Media, which refuses to confirm or deny if it has forced its star breakfast presenter to pay some of the costs of the multi-million defamation action brought against the company by the Wagner brothers.

And the 2GB breakfast announcer’s infamous interview with Sydney Opera House boss Louise Herron was “unbecoming and inappropriate”, bosses say.

Diary is told the board is unhappy with the top-rating veteran broadcaster over three incidents: the Wagner defamation case; the use of the racial epithet “nigger in the woodpile” when discussing Liberal leadership turmoil; and the aggressive Herron interview.

Macquarie Media chairman Russell Tate told Diary: “Absolutely, we had a couple of big issues. As you would expect, the board and management have been very mindful about these things and ­decided to make sure they don’t happen again and that’s been done. Alan is a professional. He gets it.”

Tate dismissed talk that advertising revenues had suffered in the wake of the controversies. “Our revenues are good, ahead of last year and ahead of forecasts.”

The price of defame

After Jones’s repeated defamations of the Wagner family over the 2011 Lockyer Valley floods, which killed 12 people, 2GB was ordered to pay $3.75 million, the largest defamation payout in history after Queensland Supreme Court judge Peter Flanagan ruled the defamation was “extremely ­serious and of the gravest kind”.

Tate refused to comment to Diary if the board had forced Jones to contribute. At Macquarie Media’s annual general meeting last week, chief executive Adam Lang confirmed the station had ­insurance but he also refused to confirm or deny if the board had asked Jones to pay. “Whether Alan is paying or not, those are matters that we would like to keep within the company.” The legal ­action would cost Macquarie about $5m and “we are prepared for that” Lang said.

But legal sources put the total cost of the action much higher, ­between $8m and $10m. And other sources at Macquarie told Diary the board had demanded Jones pay some of the costs. One 2GB insider said board members snubbed Jones after a board meeting at the network’s Pyrmont studios.

At the AGM, Tate said: “We have learnt from this and there are new procedures and new rules and new training regimes in place ­including in the case of Alan.”

The company also told the AGM it had “dealt” with Jones over his widely criticised interview with Herron.

Shareholder and anti-gambling activist Stephen Mayne told the board the interview was an “outrageous breach of editorial standards”. Lang said: “I agree it was unbecoming and it was inappropriate. Many in the community including some internally were ­offended by the way in which he handled Louise Herron AM in that broadcast. We have dealt with that directly with Alan.”

Jones was enjoying record ­audiences, Lang said.

Macquarie Media is 54.5 per cent owned by Fairfax Media, whose chief executive Greg ­Hywood sits on the Macquarie Media board. Nine Entertainment is due to complete its takeover of Fairfax next month. How any of this ­affects negotiations over Jones’s contract, which expires mid-next year, remains to be seen.

Mr. Jones is now on indefinite leave due to ill health.