2Day FM - Challenging the regulator never works.

2Day FM have been very foolish.

Recently, the Australian media regulator, the ACMA, announced that it was going to conduct a formal investigation into the prank phone call to a London hospital that ended up causing a nurse at that hospital to commit suicide.

Upon the release of preliminary fiundings, 2Day FM filed suit with Australia's Federal Court system to block any further progress in the investigation, and to prevent the ACMA finding them guilty of breaching their licence.

Basically, this is a clear admission of guilt. 

2Day FM have basically admitted that they are guilty of the offences that the ACMA is investigating them for.  And they know, full well, that they could lose their licence.  So, they have decided to take on the regulator.  Huge mistake.

In all the years I've followed the media and covered it, every media company that has taken on the regulator, in any country, has lost.  Courts have never overturned a regulator's decision, nor have they basically prevented a regulator from doing it's job.  Trying to accuse the regulator of overstepping boundaries, is ridiculous.  Trying to say that the regulator does not have the power to say that it breached the terms of it's licence, is incredibly ridiculous.

These are the death throes of a station that did not respect the rules, had no sense of where boundaries were, in fact, a station that had no sense at all.

Once the Australain Federal Court does the right thing and throws this ludicrously silly challenge out of court, then 2Day FM might as well take themselves off the air, because it will be a case of licence revoked, pretty soon.

Goodbye 2Day FM.  Your shameful behaviour in this whole sorry saga, will mean that you will not be missed.