The Kyle and Jackie O Show was pulled from the airwaves on Monday morning – as a result of a technical error – after host Kyle Sandilands got into a heated debate about the renaming of Coon cheese.
The broadcast was abruptly halted at 10:10am due to technical problems, when a furious Aboriginal listener called in to berate host Kyle Sandilands, who had said earlier in the program that he opposed the decision by Canadian dairy company Saputo Inc. to rename the iconic Australian brand.
The caller, who identified herself as a First Nations woman from the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern, was angry with Kyle and scolded him for his ‘white privilege’.
Controversy: The Kyle and Jackie O Show was pulled from the airwaves yet again on Monday due to a technical error – after host Kyle Sandilands got into a heated debate about the renaming of Coon cheese
Responding to Kyle’s claim that most Australians associate the word ‘coon’ with cheese and not with the racial slur, the woman said that she had been called a coon in the past and hated seeing the slur on supermarket shelves.
Kyle, 49, snapped back and said that he was entitled to his opinion. He also pointed out that he has half-siblings who are Indigenous.
Tense: The broadcast was abruptly halted at 10:10am when an Aboriginal listener called in to berate Kyle (pictured with co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson), after he’d said earlier in the program that he opposed the decision by Canadian dairy company Saputo Inc. to rename Coon cheese
‘Dumping’ is radio terminology for when a live show is cut off because the broadcast delay (usually around 45 seconds) is insufficient to censor inappropriate content.
The program abruptly ended and a booming voiceover said: ‘This station you’ve been listening to has been dumped.
‘This means someone has said something inappropriate and is getting in trouble. The broadcast will return in seconds.’
The Kyle and Jackie O Show did not resume once the message was over.
Instead, KIIS 106.5 went straight to a commercial break, before Gordie Waters’ daytime music show began at about 10:15am.
‘The dump was the result of a technical error and not because of anything that was said on air. The technical error was also why The Kyle & Jackie O Show did not resume broadcast today,’ an ARN spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia in a statement.
Criticism: The caller, who identified herself as a First Nations woman from the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern, was angry with Kyle and scolded him for his ‘white privilege’
Coon cheese is named after American inventor Edward William Coon (1871–1934) who patented the Cooning method of maturing cheese.
However, these days the word is more commonly recognised as a racial slur for black people with links to American slavery.
In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, Saputo Inc. announced last week that Coon cheese would be changing its name to help ‘eliminate racism’.
The new name, which hasn’t been decided, will better align with ‘current attitudes and perspectives’, the Montreal-based company said.
The news has been welcomed by some Australians, but has been opposed by others, who argue that ‘coon’ is of American origin and wasn’t historically used as a slur in Australia. (Aboriginal activists dispute this from personal experience, however.)
Debate: Responding to Kyle’s claim that most Australians associate the word ‘coon’ with cheese and not with the racial slur, the woman said that she had been called a coon in the past and hated seeing the slur on supermarket shelves. Pictured: a packet of Coon cheese
It comes after Kyle and his co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson were pulled from the airwaves last week when they attempted to bypass the censor with a sneaky trick.
Because they are banned from saying ‘c**t’ on air, the duo tried to get around the rule on Friday by using a different language.
A Spanish-speaking guest was teaching Kyle and Jackie the word ‘cantando’, which means ‘singing’.
Kyle asked the guest to repeat the word several times, then requested that he say it slowly to emphasise each syllable.
Radio silence: As the conversation became increasingly heated, the KIIS FM censor had to silence the program completely – an industry practice known as ‘dumping’. Pictured: Jackie O
Jackie soon realised what Kyle was trying to do, as the first syllable of ‘cantando’ sounds like ‘c**t’.
The censor also noticed but was unable to bleep the swear word in time, so instead had to stop the broadcast completely.
When they returned to the air, Kyle excitedly asked whether they had been able to say the word ‘c**t’ uncensored.
‘I’m pretty sure we got the Spanish word out. I’m just wondering if it got out,’ he said.
However, a producer confirmed the censor had managed to hit the dump button just in time, saying: ‘You did not beat the system!’