You really have to wonder where this city is heading when two of Commercial Radio's most popular hosts thought it was okay to ask their listeners to nominate the female artists they would most like to indecently assault. The infamous list included the Canto-pop duo Twins - Gillian Chung Yan-tung and Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin - and singers Miriam Yeung Chin-wah and Kelly Chen Wai-lam.
On the other hand, why did So-Fab hosts Sammy Leung Chi-kin and Kitty Yuen Siu-yee - whose programme caters to young people - stop at indecent assault? Why not rape, an orgy or a ritualistic murder? The answer: because that would clearly be going too far. But wasn't an indecent assault poll already a step way over the line of average decency and community standards?
Youth-oriented media seem to think these polls serve several purposes: they're an excuse to mention pop stars and starlets, and an exercise in public participation. If the polls generate enough responses, they might become news items in other media outlets, thus generating more publicity and controversy. In Leung and Yuen's case, the publicity backfired.
In an exercise in damage control, the radio station announced last week it would pull the show off the air for two months. During that time, Leung and Yuen would not be paid, and would be barred from taking up freelance work. How did two media professionals and their bosses manage to come to this, on a programme aimed at a young audience?
A single radio host, drunk on his own success, may imagine that the normal rules don't apply. But you'd think that, having two equally popular hosts, they might serve as a check and balance on each other - especially when, in the So-Fab case, one is a woman who would no doubt make a big fuss if someone else put her name in a similar, testosterone-poisoned poll on indecent assault. In this case, though, the pair might just have egged each other on.