Ray Hadley questions sudden 2UE fan increase
2GB morning host Ray Hadley has questioned how 2UE more than doubled its number of Facebook fans in just a few days.
Hadley explained yesterday that a Facebook page for his show was setup last week and reached 3000 Likes in a matter of days. He was quick to add that was more than the entire 2UE station page which only had 2111 Likes.
But over the weekend, the 2UE fan figure had grown to 5100 Likes.
Hadley said on-air: “Now, according to my staff, who are computer geeks and nerds, that was bizarre — you can’t get that many people when you’ve had a consistency of 2111 over a long period of time.
“But what’s even more bizarre, because you can do this nowadays, according to Facebook, the majority of the likes come from Istanbul in Turkey. And the majority are between 18 and 24.
“Now, you can just imagine a 22-year-old sitting in Istanbul on a Friday night saying, ‘Well, I’ve got to get hold of that Facebook page on 2UE and listen to that’, and then being joined by 2999 of his friends from Turkey.
“And so, it’s been explained to me by my staff who know a lot about this … what you can do is buy likes.
“I’m not suggesting that a reputable media company like Fairfax radio would do anything like that. I’m sure (chairman) Roger Corbett would be horrified.
“Mr Corbett, can you do me a favour and check whether your radio network is buying ‘likes’?
“Rest assured we won’t buy ‘likes’, we will continue to do what we do here.”
Hear his break from yesterday below :-
http://s3.amazonaws.com/webstore.2gb.com/audio/the-ray-hadley-morning-show/201404/14-ray-talks-about-facebook-popular.mp3
or hear it here
2UE GM Chris Parker has told The Daily Telegraph: “We appreciate everyone who has taken the time to ‘like’ us on Facebook no matter where in the world they’re from.
“And any suggestion that 2UE has purchased Facebook ‘likes’ is simply untrue.”
Read more in The Daily Telegraph