I was listening to a well known fast talking football identity being interviewed on Brisbane radio not long ago and in the space of a minute or two he had slipped the F word in a dozen times - it was part of his normal vocabulary and sounded so natural that I had to laugh.

Qantas, Optus, Coca Cola, Channel Ten will all be back on the station within weeks - is my guess. The dividing line between outrageous and disgusting is not for the likes of Sandilands to call. It’s balanced judgement from management - and smart producers.

Javes’s most interesting point, though, is that the only thing that could damage the show now is if Kyle’s loss of prestige and income from Idol has killed the cockiness that has been his professional trademark.

And interestingly, ACMA now admits that its code of practice “might be falling short of community standards” and plans to review it. However, the industry’s own lobby group, Commercial Radio Australia, will resist any changes and argues that the industry is already ” incredibly overregulated”.

I’d suggest that ACMA could begin by harnessing regulations on sponsorship and commercial activities to a code of ethics; that way any breach of the ethical code would have economic consequences for the stations.