An explosive leaked tape of 2GB’s Ray Hadley delivering an almighty
spray down the line from Athens had Sydney media circles in a frenzy
yesterday, but Crikey’s subscribers had the story – complete with full
audio of Hadley’s explosive spray – first. Read on…

Subscriber email August 25

2GB’s loudmouth sports jock/morning host Ray Hadley, OAM – as he’s billed on his boastful personal website here – has gone nuclear over his station’s increasingly chaotic Olympic coverage.

Sydney
media circles are a buzz with an explosive bootleg tape doing the
rounds, in which Hadley is heard screaming down the line from Athens
about the incompetence of the 2GB Macquarie news team, demanding that
heads should roll.

The tape is studded with the f-word
(20 by our count). At times, Hadley is incoherent with rage. At one
point he refers to a senior 2GB news director as “a f*cking spastic”,
and demands that he should be fired by the station’s program director,
John Brennan.

Even radio people accustomed to Hadley’s
bullying fits of fury are startled by this one. They say it has hit a
new low. Morale at 2GB, already low over its Olympics fiasco, is now
reported to be bumping along the bottom.

Now we’re sure you want to hear this incredible spray for yourselves…and Crikey can deliver. Listen to it here.

But we must warn you – it’s not for the faint of heart.

Sydney gossips follow up Hadley tape

Subscriber email August 26

It’s great to see the Sydney papers following Melbourne-based Crikey’s lead on that explosive Ray Hadley tape this morning. The Daily Telegraph’s Sydney Confidential even gave us a credit in its report, though the story didn’t make it online.

Spike in the SMH also had the yarn – though no mention of Crikey – including a response from 2GB program director John Brennan, as you can see here.

The Ray Hadley files

Vasili the Greek writes:

My
friend is volunteering with the Australian team, and can report with
certainty that the Ray Hadley story is true. However, like a good Greek
tragedy, there is always more! Hadley is staying at the media village
at the University of Athens, and as we now, he has a very loud voice,
and uses it to whinge about something every time.

And in
Athens, there is a lot to whinge about if you are a spoilt media
superstar hitching a bus ride through a sprawling city to a
god-forsaken sports field somewhere.

But the thing about the
tape, which doesn’t seem to get a mention, is that the quality
indicates it was almost definitely recorded at the Athens, not the
Sydney, end. In other words someone in the 2GB team in Athens has
stitched him up good and proper, as Socrates would say.

Is this why Hadley is upset?

A member of the Mike Carlton professional cheer squad writes:

In
the past two weeks the Mike Carlton breakfast show on 2UE has had every
weekday Gold Medallist on the show, except Ian Thorpe, although Mike
spoke to his mum, Margaret Thorpe, instead.

Petria Thomas, Jodie
Henry, Brad McGee, Stuart O’Grady, Graeme Brown, Ryan Bayley and the
like have all spoken to Mike, before other Sydney breakfast radio
hosts, if they’ve managed to speak to them at all.

Mike had
the first and only radio interview with Grant Hackett. On Thursday
morning, Mike was the first breakfast presenter to speak to Jana
Pittman, even before Sunrise on Seven – the rights holders.

Other
guests include Brooke Hanson and Natalie Cook for their memorable
performances, the Stewart brothers, Michael Klim and Jane Saville.

Maybe that’s why Ray Hadley is a little upset given that 2GB are the official radio rights holders.

Another Hadley sub for mention

From the daily Mediaweek update on Thursday:

A
tape of Ray Hadley’s off-air “dummy spit” features heavily in the
Sydney papers today after being released online by crikey.com.au
yesterday. Hadley’s frustrations appeared aimed at 2GB news director
Justin Kelly. 2GB PD John Brennan, who’s been around long enough to
have heard much worse than this, puts it into perspective in The SMH:
“The best people are the ones who wear their heart on their sleeve.
That can make them hard to live with, but that’s what makes them the
best.”

Spike’s many sources

Gossip columnist Andrew Hornery writes:

Hey
guys, just to let you know, we actually have other sources of
information apart from Crikey, hence we did not attribute our Hadley
item to you because we didn’t receive it from you.

Andrew Hornery
Spike Editor

CRIKEY:
Yes, but the fact of the matter is that we actually broadcast the tape
first and made it available to the wider public. Surely that is
different from something getting emailed around in media circles? Also,
we’ve heard that Hadley unleashed another tirade when told that Crikey
had broadcast the tape.

Classy Singo’s defence of his mate

Boorish
oaf John Singleton has put on a classic Sydney performance in his
defence of Hadley’s language. Whilst Hadley apologised to his listeners
for the appalling outburst against 2GB news director Justin Kelly,
Singo told The Sunday Telegraph “I don’t give a f*ck about
what everyone’s saying. The fair dinkum people in our industry know
these things happen in the heat of the moment. He’s done a f*cking good
job in Athens. I love the bloke.”

Someone should declare Singo unfit to hold a radio licence.

Hadley goes techno

If
you couldn’t get enough of 2GB’s Ray Hadley going ballistic down the
phone from Athens, have a listen to the techno version. Just what you
need to get you fired up for a Friday night out…

Listen here.

Hadley at the Tivoli

If you’ve already heard the tape of Ray Hadley going ballistic, why not
check out Hadley at the Tivoli – many of you may be unaware that the
voice of 2GB sport is actually a budding stand-up comic. We’re not sure
who put this routine together but we found it very entertaining:

Listen here.

CRIKEY:
We must also thank Ray for delivering Crikey its first day of more than
40,000 page views on Wednesday when we first published the link to his
phone call.