Just a heads up. Today's episode contains discussion of suicide and distressing themes. It might not be for you, so feel free to skip ahead. Or if you or anyone you know needs help, Lifeline is available for twenty four to seven support on thirteen eleven fourteen.
Already, and this is the DAILYA.
This is the dalyi OS.
Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday, the tenth of July. I'm Emma Gillespie.
I'm Sam Kazlowski, a former.
Radio host, is taking legal action against his ex employer over a twenty twelve pranc call controversy that made global headlines. Michael Christian is suing Southern Cross Ostereo, claiming he wasn't supported through the fallout of an on air segment that
led to tragic consequences. Today, we're going to explain what happened in twenty twelve, everything about this prank phone call and the fallout, as well as the legal action that is now underway, and what Christian is alleging about his treatment at sea.
Emma, it's hard to believe that this story goes back more than a decade, thirteen years before we get into the specifics of what happened and why we're talking about it this week. Give us a sense of the broader commercial radio landscape back then in twenty twelve. Yeah, you and I are in near twelve.
We were in near twelve, ging.
A sense of what the radio sounded like and felt like at that time.
Yeah, this was really a time of shock jock culture. And if it feels like Australian commercial radio is still in that place, trust me when I say it is a vastly different world now and largely because of the case we're going to talk about today, but particularly on breakfast radio and commercial drive, prank calls were a staple of programming, really really common. You would hear prank calls
on every major network all the time. They were designed to kind of generate controversy and buzz, and the early twenty tens twenty twelve included, really represented this kind of peak period for controversial radio contents. So shock jock culture hosts trying to push the boundaries, and networks like Southern Cross Ostereo were kind of often focused or you could often hear them trying to carry out these high profile stunts.
So the regulatory environment as well, at the time was less stringent, and in fact, the prank call we're discussing today never would have happened in other places where regulations were tighter, like the US, where actually anyone is required to give their consent before their voice is broadcast. But that gives you a little bit of a sense of what things were like here in Australia.
I think the other really interesting element about this time period was the rapid rise of Facebook and this growing idea and this growing sense that these stuff could actually have a life of their own on social media after they were broadcast.
Really nascent social media stages.
Yeah, yeah, I can almost kind of picture the news feed of when these stunts really went viral. So that was the environment when the twenty twelve incident occurred. Take me through the incident itself now, yeap.
So where in December twenty twenty twelve, when Michael Christian and his co host mel Greg were working on todayfm's Summer thirty program. So it was a summer broadcast, it was going through the biggest hits of the day and the radio station in question, TODAYFM, that we're talking about, was specifically a Sydney broadcaster, but it's part of the Southern Cross Austereo Network.
Which is a publicly listed company. It's a serious.
Player, massive company, and we'll refer to it as SEA throughout the rest of the episode. But on the fourth of December, this radio duo made a prank call to a London hospital. Now important context for the time is that Princess Catherine Kate Middleton you might know her as, was receiving treatment for her first pregnancy. So there was all this kind of global media interest in what was
happening with her pregnancy. The child that she would have eventually was George, but she had been hospitalized and was unwell. This radio duo, Michael Christian and mel greg impersonated Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth on a phone call to the hospital.
So these two hosts put on these broad British accents call up the hospital, and the hospital staff actually believed they were speaking two members of the royal family, right, yes.
So what we know from the hosts leading up to and after this is that they never expected that they would get past the switchboard of the hospital, that their accents, in their opinions, were not convincing, and that it was all just a bit of silliness, but it went wrong very very quickly, so two hospital members ended up being
deceived by the call. So the person who answered it and then transferred to a nurse, and and that nurse, the second nurse, revealed private details about Princess Catherine's condition. The call, importantly was not broadcast live, but it was later aired by sea, so the network did decide to go ahead with running it. Very tragically, just three days later, one of those nurses, her name is Jacintha Saldana, she
died by suicide. Now Saldana is not the nurse who disclosed the patient information to the hosts, but she is the nurse that transferred the call to an on duty nurse on the Duchess's hospital ward and.
So very quickly this event had a global audience and was making news all over the world. Let's go to the reaction from the Royal family and the UK media.
Yes, so two very very different responses here. Will start with the Royal family. It was notably very restrained in its response. Its response was centered around compassion. A statement from the Royal family at the time said their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everyone at the King Edward the Seventh Hospital, the hospital where Kate was being treated. Their thoughts and prayers are with Jacyntha's family, friends and colleagues at this very
sad time. So that response was really focused on the care that the duchess received. The UK media reaction, though, was markedly different. I'm sure our listeners are very familiar with the tabloid culture over there. It is cutthroat, completely different worlds to here. In Australia. The Telegraph one of the tabloids. They're essentially accused the Aussie radio hosts of scamming the hospital. The Mail Online wrote of this palace
fury at the Australian radio pranksters. It described them as and The Sun suggested that the hosts had quote flirted with a charge of high treason by posing as the Queen.
So you have this situation where a prank call goes horribly wrong yep, and then a massive fallout both for staff at the hospital and then the broader media landscape all around the world. What was the response like as that was unfolding from the two hosts and their employer.
In a word, shattered, Christian and Greg did a series of interviews at the time after the death of the nurse, and you can see it on their faces. They were incredibly distressed by what came to happen from what was meant to be a silly prank. They said, they were shattered, gutted, heartbroken.
The duo apologized, but they did maintain and they have continued to maintain over the years since, that the decision to air the call was not up to them, that senior decision makers at SEA were the ones that pushed for the segment two go to air. The incident, as you said, made global headlines. There was significant backlash and most of that, it should be said, was directed at the hosts.
And it's pretty fair to say that neither host has worked in professional radio since. Right.
Well, it might surprise you actually to know that one of them continued to work for SCA right up until this year.
Okay, well, I want to talk about that in a sec Why don't we go to the regulators now. So you did say at the top that it was a different regulatory landscape than it is on commercial radio today, but there was still some investigation and reporting based on what happened.
Yeah, there were a series of investigations from the regulatory perspective and to see if there was any criminal wrongdoing. So the media watchdog, that's the Australian Communications and Media Authority or AKMA, it found that the station Today FM breached its broadcasting license by airing the call. Now these findings might sound quite firm or serious, but they didn't
actually lead to any kind of tangible penalties. For SCA, it was confronting the threat of losing its broadcast license, so that can zone did loom large over these inquiries, but ultimately AKMAR ruled that it would not take away its broadcast license. But the aftermath of this that is not written in a black and white regulation is that broadcasters changed their approach because they were so rattled, jarred,
scarred by what had happened from this call. So immediately kind of prank calls became a massive taboo in commercial radio. There was a coronial inquest in the UK into Saldana's death right. It heard that she was left very upset by the call, that she blamed herself in those days afterwards, and her husband told the UK in quest that the forty six year old mother of two did not have a history of mental ill health before her death.
So that's quite a serious ton of events.
Yep.
Why are we talking about it this week?
So there is current legal action the cases back in the headlines because Michael Christian, one of the radio duo involved in the prank call, filed action in the federal court. Now, as I mentioned earlier, that one of the hosts continued working for SEA, So that's him. That was him. He worked there until February this year. Mel greg actually left the network shortly after the twenty twelve incident. Christian, though, has now launched this legal action, alleging that he was
pressured into the prank call by the network. He claims he became a scapegoat for the incident and that SCA failed to support him during the intense period of backlash that followed after Saldana's death and in the years of inquiries and investigations that were subsequent. He also says that this led to severe mental health issues and damaged his career.
So is this happening in the context of like an unfair dismissal case?
Essentially, yes, So it's an action in the federal court under a fair work claim. So Christian was made redundant in February of this year, but he argues that the termination was not genuine. He says that Southern crossholl Stereo still requires someone to perform his role, that it's being backfilled, and so his lawyers claim that that dismissal is in breach of the Fair Work Act because redundancies are meant to be in place if the role someone's performing is
no longer required. That Christian says is not the case with his dismissal, And.
There's a lot of complicated law around how long the position has to be empty for before a similar position can be filled by the employer. Redundancy law takes up a lot of the time of the Fair Work kind of legal experts what specifically those Christian arguing about the network's handling of the situation. Back in twenty twelve.
So, according to court documents seen by the Australian Associated Press, Southern crosshold Stereo promised that it would support its hosts through any controversies related to on air content. And I suppose this speaks to the culture of twenty twelve radio that a lot of stations were going for the kind of shock value in their segments in the face of kind of this uprising social media threat and people young
listeners especially kind of becoming disengaged. So hosts were made to believe that they had the support of the network, but Christian said, even though he really did believe SAA would protect him, it instead let its presenters take the blame.
So that's really interesting because it's this sense of like the executives, according to Christians, kind of saying to the hosts, we know you're going to try some stuff on air that's a bit red hot. Yeah, but we've got your back.
Yeah, but go for it. And Christian says basically he had no choice about the call going to air, that it was not his decision to do the segment or run the segment, but that the broadcaster wanted to do that, and he thought that that meant that they would stand
by him. According to the AAP reporting on the court documents, Christians lawyers have told the court that Southern Cross OS Stereo Quote did not immediately take public accountability for the incident, but rather allowed mister Christian and miss greg to be left exposed to relentless public vitriol, harassment, and abuse, including death threats.
It's worth noting at the moment, those are all allegations being leveled at the network. Have we heard from the network in response to these? And also, I wonder if we've heard from Mel Greg.
Yeah, well I can answer both of those questions for you, Sam, We have actually heard from SCA. I reached out and a spokesperson got back to me and said, as the matter is currently before the courts, and out of respect for the legal process and the privacy of those involved, it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this time, so kind of what we expect from a corporation during ongoing legal proceedings. The matters are before the courts, so
there's not too much they can say right now. But as for Mel Greg, we have also heard from her. So she posted to her Instagram stories with a statement saying she understands why her former colleague has chosen to go down this path, and she said that she hopes the continued attention on this tragic incident will lead to quote substantial reforms in the way media produce content and
support their staff. She's been really candid over the last decade about the impact this incident had on her mental health. She has not really worked in radio or in the media industry in the same way since and really this changed the course of her life.
Listeners to this podcast are very familiar with the fact that these court cases can take some time. What happens next here.
Well, the matter is yet to appear before the court. We're in our very early stages of proceedings. Basically, all we know is that Michael Christian and his team have lodged a submission to sue SCA to the federal court. He is expected to seek compensation for economic loss and damages. Now that will be relating to the twenty twelve prank call incident. That will be also relating to Sea's handling of the fallout, and now this fair work claim of
unfair dismissal. It is worth noting that Melgreg filed similar proceedings against the network in twenty thirteen, but she agreed to a private settlement following mediation talks led by the Fair Work Commission. So there is some precedent of fair work negotiations between these two parties, the host and the network.
We will never really know what happened in that settlement, and even Melgreg, in her statement earlier this week, said that she'll never really be able to talk about what happened, but she does hope that some good comes from this continued attention.
A really tragic case that's had lasting impacts, and despite wins or losses in the court, I don't think there really are any winners from this situation. I just want to reiterate that helpline number one more time. If you or anyone you know needs some help, you can contact Lifeline anytime on thirteen eleven fourteen at thirteen eleven fourteen. That's all we've got for you for today's deep dive. Thank you so much for joining us. We're going to
be back in the afternoon with your headlines. Until then, have a great day. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkadoon woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.