BY ASHLEY GEELAN
Radio shock jock and controversial misogynist, Kyle Sandilands, has described people who tried to have The Kyle & Jackie O Show’s $100,000 ‘tennis ball drop’ competition at Elsternwick Park Tennis Club cancelled as “real little whinging bitches.”
The competition, which saw 200 foam tennis balls poured from a low hovering helicopter onto a tennis court at the Elsternwick Park Tennis Centre on Friday morning, went ahead without incident.
“Following the drop, 100 contestants ran onto the court and collected two balls each to win prizes as a second helicopter filmed the action,” Herald Sun journalist Fiona Byrne claims. (This is factually incorrect).
[FACT CHECK: There was no second helicopter as the Herald Sun is claiming. See the flight map and data. VicNews recorded the event from Moorabbin Air Traffic Control Tower (West) on 123.000MHz AM (Recorded the air traffic from the Tower). Only one helicopter, registration VH-HFN, was ‘in the air’ during the ball drop. See map below].
There were complaints about the safety of the competition from locals. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) approved KIIS’s application at 6:35pm on Thursday, January 23, 15 hours before the competition was scheduled to commence.
CASA representatives were on site on Friday as well as a medical team. No protesters turned up.
“People were trying to close it down, rallying the government, contacting the air marshals – real little whinging bitches,” Sandilands told his listeners.
“They just did not want us doing it, they thought it was too dangerous, people could get killed and all this, just a lot of drama.”
Before the stunt, Sandilands was talking about “dropping balls” and “sucking dicks” live on air including telling those who had complained to “suck dick.”
Sandilands claimed most of the complaints made to the tennis centre and CASA were “fake”.
“Now who would benefit from trying to ruin one of our contests?” Sandilands asked.
“Maybe another radio station, maybe some old mole who just does not know what fun is, maybe some bloke Jackie ghosted on social, who knows.”
The controversial and misogynistic KIIS FM shock jock challenged claims the station had to swap real tennis balls for foam balls following complaints.
“It was always foam balls,” Sandilands said.
“We’re throwing foam balls out of a helicopter, not grenades.”
[FACT CHECK: The advertising – on air, in print and online explicitly stated they were “tennis balls” and not foam balls. See ad below].
The stunt was conducted by a 2008 Robinson CO R44 II Rotorcraft (helicopter) with the registration VH-HFN. It started the ball drop stunt by departing Moorabbin Airport (MBW/YMMB) at 7:31am and over-flying the tennis club.
The helicopter landed safely at Moorabbin Airport at 8:27am and is owned and operated by E.R. Heli Charter Pty Ltd.
The Kyle and Jackie O show in Melbourne suffered a massive ratings slump last year.
KIIS FM, or its parent company, ARN, did not respond to request for comment.
I would like to know who in CASA was paid off at the last minute by Kyle and how much to authorise this stunt?
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