Close shaves for 5FM's shock jocks

With Cliff announcing his shock departure on air on Monday, the station has moved to call on Grant Nash to host its breakfast show for this month.

Experience tells us that Nash is far less polarising than the two. But is the slot purely for bad boys, whom the station seems to favour?

Here's a reminder of some of 5FM's breakfast shock jocks' run-ins with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of SA:

Gillman gaffes:

• Listeners complained when he called then co-host Catherine Strydom a "buffalo bitch" when he phoned her in East London. The station said there was nothing wrong because Strydom was in "Buffalo City".

It said Gillman regularly called Strydom "bitch" because it was "a common and contemporary use of a word in reference to her as his sidekick". It said regular listeners would "immediately recognise" the reference.

• A listener complained that Gillman had used the term "bonehead schools" in reference to Afrikaans schools, thereby implying that all Afrikaans people were stupid. The station called it a "throw-away" comment, and because he was talking about his former school, the station found the comment "more selfdeprecating than disparaging".

He escaped sanction.

• Gillman invited music group Beeskraal to his show and subsequently referred to them as a "far right-wing punk band". He asked its members about their khaki clothing, and also wondered whether they were farmers.

The complainants claimed the interviewer insinuated that the group had connections with white fundamentalists who had allegedly set off bombs in Soweto.

However, Gillman was let off the hook again, with the commission saying the interview was "not on a matter of public importance or controversy".

Gareth Cliff.

Cliff clangers:

• He upset scores after telling his listeners that when he played dub step music at a recent gig, which no one could dance to, the partygoers "looked like a bunch of epileptics". In its long response, 5FM said Cliff also mentioned characteristics of white and black dancers, which "ought to illustrate that he did not intentionally single out the epileptic society".

He was warned to be more careful in future.

• He said he'd had a dream that he'd won the Lotto, adding: "I was as excited as a paedophile on a school bus." 5FM claimed it was said in a metaphorical way to express his joy about his dream.

Cliff and the station were reprimanded for his "utterly unfair and ill-informed" comment.

Source: The Times, via I-Net Bridge