2Day FM, the radio station that hosted the Royal Prank, is refusing to Fire Mel Greig and Michael Christian after the incident that resulted in the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha.
Rhys Holleran, Southern Cross Austereo (which owns the station) CEO, held a press conference about the prank and suicide in which he defended his DJs (as I did earlier) with the following:
I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it’s fair to say they are completely shattered. These people aren’t machines, they’re human beings. What happened is incredibly tragic and we’re deeply saddened and we’re incredibly affected by that. I think prank calls as a craft in radio have been going for decades and decades and are not just part of one radio station or network or country. No-one could have reasonably foreseen what ended up being an incredibly tragic day.
Still, there’s a question of how long the station will stand by them as advertisers are beginning to pull their ads from the station and thousands around the world are calling for them to be fired or worse.