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David Koch hits back at editorial slamming “sexist and demeaning” segment

A war of words breaks out between Kochie and Mamma Mia, all over a stripper's pole and its context.

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2014-01-23_0014A war of words has broken out between Sunrise co-host David Koch and Mia Freedman’s Mama Mia website after editor Jamila Rizvi criticised an online segment as “sexist and demeaning.”

During “The Sunrise Couture” segment, broadcast on the Sunrise site, co-host Sam Armytage joked that her shoes resembled “stripper’s shoes.” But after David Koch walked on with a stripper’s pole and Joe Cocker’s Leave Your Hat On began playing, Mama Mia published an editorial entitled, “Dear Kochie. It’s not okay to humiliate your colleague on television.”

“Are you cool with that? Was Sam?” 

“Sam proceeded to play along with it; wrapping her leg around the pole, giggling and looking embarrassed. Uncomfortable. But her reaction appeared to be one of genuine surprise – this little skit wasn’t cleared with her in advance, she hadn’t given the OK for it to go ahead.

“’These shoes are the choice for pole dancers all over the country,’ Sam said. To which Koch replied “Be careful because they’re quite reflective” as he peered down at his co-host’s bare legs.

“The whole thing made my stomach turn just a little. Partly because the segment was incredibly low brow, totally unfunny humour. Partly because I wished Sam had stood up for herself and told her co-host where to go.

“It was sexist and demeaning.

“Samantha Armytage is a journalist. Not eye candy there for the titillation of Kochie, the crew or the viewers.”

But Koch hit back saying the segment had not been broadcast on Sunrise, that Armytage had made the joke not him, that suggestions she didn’t have the power to object were ridiculous and that further suggestions she was eye candy for him were demeaning to his wife and family.

Armytage also acknowledged via Twitter that she would be the first to say if she was uncomfortable.

Things got worse when Koch tweeted that his comment had been banned by the site and the original story had been amended.

 

Eventually Koch’s comment was published, but despite 160 submitted comments, the site has since closed comments and none (including Koch’s) appear at the time of publishing.

On the Mamia Mia Facebook page the site has come in for a serve from angry readers, including many accusing it of deleting comments.

Sunrise Executive Producer Michael Pell has said of the kerfuffle, “It’s just a bit of fun. It certainly gave us all a good laugh. If any strippers have been offended by this video, we sincerely apologise.”

Update: Sam Armytage responds to MamaMia story on Sunrise this morning, indicating she had no problem with the segment.

26 Responses

  1. Armytage and Koch bringing it up on Sunrise was unnecessary. All they have done is given Mamamia publicity.

    It was a stupid article by Jamila who obviously is totally oblivious when it comes to Sunrise. She wrote Armytage was afraid to tell the executive producer she was upset. Um hello, Armytage only replaced Doyle because she’s Pell’s bestie.

  2. Why on earth would anybody with a brain that functions would watch Sunrise & the boring people that perform on it I don’t know.
    I don’t think Koch has ever had an original thought in his life,all his opinions are run by Stokes first dont want to upset the owner.
    As for Freedman like Koch a lightweight on about the same intelligence level as the airheads who read Mia & watch Sunrise for the brain-dead

  4. I’ll preface this by saying I am absolutely not a fan of Sunrise or David Koch.

    I read the Mamma Mia article before watching the clip. They completely misrepresented the segment. Sam didn’t look surprised or uncomfortable at all. It just wasn’t as dramatic as they described. The article was sensationalist and the censorship was wrong.

  6. To me this whole event has been blown out of all proportions by people shooting from the hip, including Kochie’s ” Playing with the Big Boys” ego trip.
    To me the whole original farce by Sunrise,Sam and Kochie reeks of being a pre-arranged set up and even possibly being pre-rehearsed ( but if so the rehearsals were a waste of time), because if this did not go to air during sunrise, just when were the scenes shot to end up online, and how many other studios would just happen to have what seems to be a matching gold pole dancing pole(but regardless) available at such short spontaneous notice, or was it brought on site earlier or at least taking sometime to locate one?
    What’s next?, it wouldn’t surprise me, if there is a surprise visitor on the MKR cruise ship extravaganza, possible even the theme of the ” Love Boat ” for the irresistible Samantha.

  7. I never watch ‘Hey, Hey It’s Sunrise’ these day but was this piece of slapstick “sexist and demeaning”? Not at all, and certainly not to Samantha Armytage who appeared to enjoy the joke. I find it offensive that a self-appointed judge & jury should try to speak for someone else about something that is none of their business. The issue here is that there is a certain prudish, busy-body, anti-fun group out there that has absolutely no sense of humour. I can’t state their name for fear of ‘offending’ them but it starts with ‘fem’ and ends with ‘inist’. So glad that Sam Armytage put MamaMoaner.com in their place!

  8. @sacs
    “Sloppy reporting by Mama Mia is getting the backlash it deserves.”
    You really think that Mia Freedman and Jamila Rizvi deserve the death and rape threats they’re getting? Over this?

    This seems to be systematic of our time: an only moderately offensive TV segment, whereby TV’s current golden girl is likened to a stripper by her co-host, a man with some history of doing this kind of thing, leads to an online response from a blogger who didn’t appreciate their antics, and now we have a media circus and death threats being made.
    How has it come to this? Where people’s online actions, comments and opinions attract such violent responses.

    Take a step back everyone.

  9. I’m not a fan but I think this is the first time in my life I have agreed with David Koch.

    Sloppy reporting by Mama Mia is getting the backlash it deserves.

    First world problems, indeed.

  11. I’m not a fan of Koch’s by any means and his humour prob was both low-brow, not particularly funny, and poss a bit sexist (haven’t seen segment and not going to).

    However, Freedman / Mama Mia did themselves no favours with their reaction to Koch’s response. To not permit him a right of reply (not even in the comments) and then (if the third last para above is true) to delete/hide everyone else’s comments was just an over-reaction and bad PR.

    I see that comments are back up including Koch’s, and apparently open for new ones.

    David, your link to the Mama Mia article is broken.

  12. The way i see it is that all they want is publicity for their site and they got it. They need to lighten up and it doesn’t surprise me that they targeted him. Why not target Karl on Today instead? Oh wait Mia appears on that show.

    Sam gave a great response this morning and good on them for fighting back. Koch can be a total idiot at times but this was taken way out of context.

  14. There are desperate farmers in Queensland and here they are propping up their own egos. Maybe a couple of minutes on the show to explain their position but they had 2 segments on it and a few Facebook threads to get some kind of support. Way overboard. Just childish on both sides.

  16. The way I see it is: Kochie brought out a stripper pole and asked Sam to dance around it to reinforce the joke that she was wearing heels similar to a stripper = creepy
    And Mamamia blog post called it for what it was = offensive.
    Sam played along with the joke for a second and then refused to go further = strong woman who can stand up for herself.

    Kochie came out of this looking a bit silly so he should probably just cop the criticism and quieten down.

  17. MammaMia has become an online version of all the other magazine rags, Woman’s Day etc.

    It started off well but has degenerated into just a rubbishy site, leaping at anything which might be just the wee-ist bit controversial. If it aimed for quality rather than quantity, it might be a little more readable.

  20. Well done Sam great response this morning with what you said, This was a total over reaction by the people from mamma mia. The pole segment wasnt even shown on air. It was just for there website.

    Sam was the one that made the joke about her shoes in the first place. Kochie did nothing wrong. It was a joke lighten up people.

  21. Great come back from Sunrise, it was all a bit of fun and if the media have to make a mountain out of a mole hill I feel sorry for them as they have nothing at all in their lives. The brand of shoes are expensive and very modern and look great and if the people involved in the show were happy with everything why try and down grade it for a few narrow mined people. Pathetic media.

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