FlyFm has been getting a lot of negativity lately. Last year, the local radio station was constantly criticised by their listeners for their decision to introduce AI announcers rather than hiring actual people for the job.
It looks like they’ve finally found themselves a new human announcer to join the team but unfortunately, the person they chose is probably not the best choice as netizens were quick to do a background check on him. Here’s what they discovered:
@flyfm How excited are we to listen to @Arieff Yong’s debut as our official radio announcer? 🤩 #flyfmjokers
During the Thaipusam holiday (Thursday, 25th January), FlyFm announced that they have a new member joining the morning show hosted by Kavin Jay and Ryan Howlett. The new announcer was revealed to be a local influencer who will be replacing Juanita David Ramayah after her departure last year. This news would normally excite people but unfortunately for the radio station, they got plenty of backlash.
After announcing the new team member of the morning show on all their social media pages, netizens were quick to point out that this particular TikToker had a pretty massive controversy a few years ago. As one would expect, FlyFM was called out for hiring this content creator despite his past. Here’s what many of them had to say:
The radio station had disabled the comments section of the same announcement videos on Instagram so we can assume that they are aware of what people have been saying. Sadly, this isn’t the first time a FlyFM announcer was called out for something problematic.
Last year, one of their announcers was accused of stealing someone’s boyfriend, who was said to be the station’s music director at the time. Prior to that, another announcer received backlash after he defended a certain comedian for her distasteful joke about the MH370 tragedy. So how will the company handle this current backlash?
Update (31st January):
Media Prima has reached out to us regarding the viral issue and provided an official statement. “Our engagement with Arieff Young was done after a rigorous talent acquisition process which includes a review of his professional credentials and a thorough individual background check.
Media Prima Audio (MPA) has sighted legal documents surrounding the 2021 case which include a retraction and formal apology from the accuser which was duly accepted by Arieff. Given the mutual resolution, MPA has decided that Arieff is deserving of the opportunity to showcase his talents with our radio station.”
