Carrie Bickmore’s radio bosses hold crisis meeting after she promised a $30K prize to listener without permission from management – before offering to cough up the cash herself
Carrie Bickmore has received a slap on the wrist from her radio bosses for promising a massive cash prize to a listener without permission.
The former Project host was running an on-air game with co-host Tommy Little on Wednesday when she decided to go off-script by increasing the prize money from $10,000 to a whopping $30,000.
To win, the listener had to guess the exact moment a stopwatch reached five seconds.
Tommy was stunned after Carrie spontaneously announced: ”Because our show starts at three, I’m timesing it by three. Thirty grand on the line today… I just think it’s what people want.’
Tommy jokingly asked whether Carrie had been ‘hitting the bottle’ that day, before pointing out that their boss was ‘shaking her head’.
Undeterred, Carrie assured Tommy that she’d spoken to their producers, and agreed to cover the cost of the prize money if the company can’t afford to give away the full amount.
Amazingly, the listener managed to win the game, stopping the clock bang on five seconds.
Panicking, Carrie gasped: ‘I didn’t run this past the bosses at all! just went rogue and said $30,000 and now I’ve… oh my god, oh my god.’
Carrie Bickmore (pictured with Hit Network co-host Tommy Little) has received a slap on the wrist from her radio bosses for promising a massive cash prize to a listener without permission
Carrie went on to admit she was ‘terrified’ about the prospect of having to shell out the prize money herself.
Luckily she didn’t end up having to foot the bill, as a Hit Network has since confirmed to News Corp that Carrie’s radio show covered the full amount.
It comes amid reports Southern Cross Austereo’s profits are in decline.
The former Project host was running an on-air game with co-host Tommy Little on Wednesday when she decided to go off-script by increasing the prize money from $10,000 to a whopping $30,000
The radio network, which hosts Hit Network and Triple M, pulled in $260.1 million in yesterday’s numbers, according to Unmade.
It was a slight rise from last year, which came in at $259.8 million, however, the EBITDA earnings fell from $48.2 million to $43.1 million.
The EBITDA are earnings before interest, taxation and depreciation among other deductions.
However in the network’s heyday, EBITDA profits in 2012 were $123 million, showing a drop of a third in the past decade.
According to Unmade that marks the ‘worst ever start to a financial year’ for the network.
Amazingly, the listener managed to win the game, stopping the clock bang on five seconds. Carrie then admitted she was ‘terrified’ about the prospect of having to shell out the prize money herself
