Seven West Media is once again under fire in the media – this time for an allegation of female dancers dressed up as “sexy Santas” featuring in a staff meeting.
The allegation was first reported in the Australian Financial Review on Monday, as the television news network is grappling with the fallout of a major investigation against the network for alleged misconduct in the workplace.
According to reports, a meeting was held at Seven West Media headquarters in Perth on Friday to welcome new appointments to the team, including Sarah-Jane Tasker as the first female editor and Adrian Lowe as the first LGBTQIA+ boss of the weekend newspaper, The Sunday Times. Chris Dore was also appointed as the new editor-in-chief at The West Australian newspaper.
The meeting was also to discuss upcoming programs, including Perth’s annual Christmas Pageant on December 7.
As deputy news director Ray Kuka began discussing the upcoming program, reports say he was interrupted by Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You blaring through the speakers.
Women dressed up as “sexy Santas” – wearing Santa hats and short red dresses – appeared on the stage to dance in front of the staff members in the meeting.
Some staff were so shocked they walked out of the meeting in protest, according to reports. But a spokesperson for Seven West Media doubled down on the performance, telling AFR it was part of the “Perth institution” that is the Christmas Pageant.
Seven West Media is grappling with damaging allegations about its work culture towards women. At a town hall on Friday, Seven execs brought out sexy Santa dancers leaving attendees horrified that the company still doesn’t get it.
— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) August 25, 2024
Tomorrow’s column:https://t.co/czNnz0Y07X
People online didn’t hold back their criticism.
“That’s definitely an organisation run by men. Really old men,” one person wrote.
“How is this real?” another said.
“OMG – if they thought that was even slightly appropriate given everything we’ve found out about them, the cultural makeup of that organisation is badly broken,” said a third.
Other allegations
Seven West Media has been in the spotlight for its workplace culture, especially after a major investigation was published by the ABC earlier this month.
According to the ABC Four Corners investigation, staff in managerial or senior positions used threatening, inappropriate behaviour directed at staff in more junior roles. Some women from the network came forward to allege experiencing workplace sexual harassment.
Robert Ovadia, a former Sydney reporter at the Seven Network, was one man at the centre of the allegations of inappropriate behaviour. On June 21, he was stood down from his position. He is now taking the network, plus head of news Anthony De Ceglie, to the Federal Court to dispute the termination of his employment.
“Any suggestion that I have behaved inappropriately at any time is false, malicious and will be defended,” Ovadia said in a statement.
There were earlier allegations of misconduct within the network before ABC’s investigation. During the Lehrmann v Network Ten defamation trial, where Bruce Lehrmann was suing Network Ten for damage to his reputation, former Seven producer Taylor Auerbach gave evidence alleging Seven reimbursed Lehrmann for payments for illicit drugs, sex workers, expensive dinners and more in late 2022 and early 2023.
At the time, Seven’s news program Spotlight was filming an interview with Lehrmann, who was defending himself against claims that he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
While Lehrmann has and continues to deny the allegations, a civil trial found, on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann raped Higgins.
In the eleventh hour of the defamation trial in April this year, Taylor Auerbach testified to the Federal Court of Australia that the Seven network had paid for several expenditures before, during and after the Spotlight interviews with Lehrmann.
One of the largest invoices came from 26 November 2022. According to Auerbach, eight separate charges to Sensai Thai Massage amounted to $10,315.
In a statement to the media, Seven said the network did not condone or authorise any alleged payments to Lehrmann that Auerbach claims to have occurred.