Southern Cross Austereo chief executive and managing director Grant Blackley spoke for the first time yesterday about the events surrounding Eddie McGuire and comments made on Triple M about Caroline Wilson.
Appearing on the Mediaweek program on Sky News Business with Nadine Blayney and James Manning, Blackley was asked if the company had taken too long to respond publicly.
“What you need to understand is a number of things. We think the comments were unacceptable and disrespectful. We do have a set of protocols we work through and we worked through those and then responded within a day and a half [after the story hit mainstream media].
“We had a board meeting and I wanted to get their views, and management needed to work within the protocols we had. We also wanted to work with the White Ribbon Foundation to gain their support for the announcement we released.”
When asked about the effect of the comments on the company, Blackley said: “I would hope that a single comment from an individual is not going to damage the culture in a company with 2,500 employees or the constituents we broadcast to. We take this very seriously and we feel we responded quickly. We will be going through a training exercise for the staff, some of whom were involved and some who were not.”
Blackley said he spoke with AFL boss Gillon McLachlan earlier in the week, “but we didn’t liaise with the AFL on what the commentary would be. We also decided we wouldn’t get involved with Richmond [regarding the football club’s boycott of Triple M].”