We were taken aback when we read that 2GB Sydney shock jock Ben Fordham was driving an Uber as a “side hustle” in a tough economy.
Numerous media reports said Fordham, who reportedly earns $1.5m to host the Nine Radio breakfast show, had taken his first passenger and “Wen was her name, lovely lady”.
“I picked her up not far from 2GB and dropped her to work and she gave me five stars” and a $3 tip, Nine website Honey reported.
News.com.au had a similar tale. “Nine’s golden boy Ben Fordham has revealed he has taken up the side hustle of being an Uber driver,” reporter Mary Madigan wrote. “Fordham happily shared that this week he’d finally gotten certified and completed his first Uber driver trip.”
In the Daily Telegraph, chief entertainment writer Jonathon Moran wrote: “Radio king Ben Fordham has revealed a shock side hustle. As Australians struggle to deal with the cost of living crisis, many taking on second jobs to survive, the 2GB breakfast host has secured his Uber driving credentials.”
The Daily Mail told its readers Fordham was “set to take on a new career” and had “let slip that he recently signed up to become an Uber driver”.
Fordham also told the story on 2GB in a regular segment with financial commentator Peter Switzer. “I told you I was going to get a side hustle,” Fordham said on the business report segment. “I’ve taken my first passenger in an Uber.”
But why would a successful radio personality drive an Uber to earn extra cash? we wondered. The truth is Fordham does have a side hustle, but it’s not driving an Uber. It’s promoting Uber.
Nine Radio confirmed Fordham has a “personal commercial agreement” with Uber Australia, which is disclosed on the 2GB website. Under the agreement Fordham must “feature in, and assist in preparation of video, radio and print advertisements for Uber Australia” as well as appear at and MC events. None of the articles or radio segments disclosed this commercial deal.
After the wave of press about his antics, Fordham returned to the airwaves to disclose that “Uber are a partner of ours here at 2GB, they’re advertising with us at 2GB” and went on to say Uber took him out to lunch and offered him a person commercial deal as well.
“And so you’ll be hearing more about Uber here on 2GB because they are one of our partners, and they’re also hiring me to do a few other things for them hosting some events.”
We asked the Daily Mail, Nine and News Corp editors why readers were not told the radio star’s Uber driving was a stunt and not an authentic side hustle. We received no reply.
Uber was more forthcoming, saying: “As one of Australia’s top media personalities, Uber has engaged Ben Fordham to MC Uber events, including an awards ceremony last year to celebrate our driver, delivery and restaurant partner community, as well as a pitch event as part of our business booster program for entrepreneurial drivers and delivery partners.”
The commercial deal does not involve Fordham driving or delivering for Uber.
Barking up the wrong tree
We told you last month that the ABC claimed its highest-ever audience for Bluey after the new 10-part series averaged “a whopping series average total audience of 11 million”.
We also warned that the figures may be inflated. The ABC publicity department claimed that since April, Bluey had the highest total audience achieved by any series to air in Australia, including Married at First Sight (2.58m), Lego Masters (2.2m) and State of Origin (2.6m in 2022) on Nine.
But the the official ratings provider, OzTAM, has confirmed that the way Aunty added up the figures was incorrect. The ABC should have used the word “reach” rather than “average” because it appears to have added up all of Bluey’s individual screenings to get to the 11m figure.
For the record, Bluey usually gets about 400,000 viewers in the capital cities when it screens a new episode, which is an outstanding result for a single episode.
An OzTAM spokesperson told TV Tonight the ABC claim was incorrect because you couldn’t call the 11m figure an average.
Another caution for Sandilands
In August last year Kyle Sandilands described the monkey pox virus as “the big gay disease” and said that “it’s only the gays getting it”. It’s taken a full 12 months but the Australian Communications and Media Authority has found the segment on KIIS FM’s Kyle and Jackie O show “stereotyped gay men as irresponsible in regard to their sexual health, this made them the prime carriers of a virus that presented a danger to the community and, as a result, they were not deserving of sympathy or compassion”.
It’s yet another rap over the knuckles for Sandilands, who was forced into sensitivity training after describing watching the Tokyo Paralympics as “horrific”.
Sandilands revealed on air this week that his son’s first birthday had cost him $25,000, a drop in the ocean for a man earning $5m a year. The party was still a fraction of what the shock jock spent on his wedding earlier this year, controversially attended by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, alongside a former convict.
AI bots to News Corp’s rescue
At News Corp’s global results on Friday morning, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation reported a 75% drop in full-year profit and signalled there were opportunities ahead as it plans to take advantage of advances in generative AI.
Guardian Australia revealed last week the News Corp Australia is already producing 3,000 articles a week using generative artificial intelligence. This was news to good number of the company’s editorial staff, who were alarmed by the report and say they were never told.
The News Corp national house committee has written to the Australian executive chair, Michael Miller – who revealed the AI use at an international conference – “seeking detailed answers about the use of artificial intelligence in the company’s publications”, according to the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
Four Corners left on the bench
The Matildas matches have been so popular they are wreaking havoc with regular programming. A special edition of Q+A broadcast live from the Garma festival this week attracted an audience of just 84,000 in the major cities.
For comparison, the Matildas’ victory over Denmark on Monday night set new records with an audience of 2.29m in the major cities.
But an episode of Four Corners, “Shadow State,” an investigation by Angus Grigg and Jessica Longbottom into government consultancies and firms like PwC, Deloitte and Accenture, was the biggest casualty.
The ABC moved it from Monday 31 July to 7 August, only to come up against another Matildas match. So they premiered it on ABC iview at 5pm on Sunday when no one was watching the footy.
Toxic Twitter
Last month Stan Grant stepped down from hosting Q+A after receiving “grotesque racist abuse” that included posts on Twitter which targeted him as an Indigenous man. This week managing director David Anderson said the broadcaster was shutting down almost all of its official accounts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. He cited “toxic interactions” with ABC staff as one of the reasons.
The decision has been a long time coming as Twitter does little to protect its users. In May the ABC’s news director, Justin Stevens, said the ABC had “lodged a detailed complaint with Twitter over the racist abuse of Stan on its platform”.
The Weekly Beast understands the complaint has been finalised and the ABC is dismayed by the response from Twitter.
The broadcaster submitted numerous examples of grotesque racial abuse on Twitter directed at Grant – too offensive to repeat – and every one came back with the finding that the post was not a violation of Twitter rules and no action would be taken.
