Inside the toxic culture at Sony Music Australia | Four Corners

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And the winner is...
..Tina Arena!
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
I would like to thank, once again, Sony Music, Denis Handlin...
To my wonderful record company,
Denis Handlin for signing me when I was 15 years old...
I have to thank my team at Sony Music,
led by, of course, Denis Handlin...
ALICIA KEYS: The ARIA goes to...
..Jessica Mauboy!
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
To Denis Handlin, thank you for letting me be me.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: He is known as one of the most powerful men
in the music industry.
Denis Handlin and my incredible crew at Sony,
I wouldn't have a career without you.
I think a lot of people feel fear when they hear that name.
GRACE TOBIN: It's the music industry's worst-kept secret,
a company ruled by fear and intimidation.
This is the inside story of Sony Music Australia
under the reign of its long-time CEO, Denis Handlin.
GREG LOCKHART: The legend of Denis has lived on for a long time
and everybody is aware of it.
This is not a secret.
You seem reluctant to say Denis Handlin's name. Is there...
Can I just have a moment? Sorry.
It's always been a massive story
that has been waiting to come out,
and it could never come out while Denis was still at the helm
because people were so scared.
There was a sense that he was untouchable.
Allegations of systemic bullying.
SHANE EARLE: I felt targeted, I felt manipulated
and I certainly felt abused.
So...
(SIGHS) Yeah...
..there's only so much you can put up with.
A culture where discrimination and sexual misconduct
were allowed to thrive.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: I was sexually harassed when I worked at Sony.
I've had friends sexually assaulted.
It's just the norm.
For the first time, these are the voices Sony Music tried to silence.
ELEANOR MCKAY: I used to say
that the kindest thing I could say about Denis
was that he was sort of an equal-opportunity abuser,
you know, he was as mean to men as he was to women.
GREG LOCKHART: The neglect of corporate governance on this issue
is staggering.
It's disgusting how they've supported one human being,
setting aside everybody else in the company.
ALAN TERREY: I couldn't go to my grave, in all honesty,
without telling the story.
Tonight on Four Corners
we investigate decades of abuse and misconduct at Sony Music Australia,
one of the country's largest record labels.
We expose the toxic regime of its infamous former CEO, Denis Handlin,
and how the company's global head office
failed to protect its Australian staff for almost 40 years.
(PAPARAZZI CLAMOUR)
(SPEAKS INAUDIBLY)
(CHEERING)
At annual award ceremonies around the world,
Sony Music's success is on show.
MAN: (YELLS) Miley! Miley!
Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK)
IRENE SAUNDERS: Lots of high-selling artists, high-profile artists,
basically all the household names.
WOMAN: (YELLS) Congratulations, Tina!
(CHEERING)
In Australia,
the company has launched and fostered some of our biggest acts.
But the man behind these record deals
was even more formidable than the stars themselves.
IRENE SAUNDERS: He was a machine,
a complete phenomenon.
Because I don't think anywhere else in the world you'd have...
..a CEO of a music company with that much power,
but somehow he built it.
As Sony's Chief Executive of 37 years,
Chairman of the ARIA board and an Officer of the Order of Australia,
Denis Handlin dominated the music business
until four months ago.
ARCHIVE REPORTER: One of Australian music's most powerful men
has been unceremoniously ousted today...
ELEANOR MCKAY: I was stunned, actually.
I thought he had operated with such impunity for so long,
I just couldn't believe
that...it had actually happened.
His sacking came as a bombshell,
but the global music juggernaut had known of his behaviour for decades
and failed to stop him.
ALAN TERREY: I think the thing that has upset most of us
was that New York said, "Oh, we've just found out about this problem,
"this has just come to light."
And we know that that's such a load of hogwash.
That myth has to be challenged.
GREG LOCKHART: For them to just say, "Oh, we found out about it
"a month ago or two months ago,"
it's just implausible.
And it's embarrassing and it's insulting
to everyone that's worked there
and copped this abuse for all those years.
The neglect of corporate governance on this issue from New York
is staggering.
Staggering.
(TRAFFIC ZOOMS)
(ROCK MUSIC PLAYS)
It was the 1970s, an era of disco and rock'n'roll,
when Denis Handlin began his career with Sony Music in the mailroom.
His ambition was unstoppable
and he quickly worked his way up into management.
CATHIE HANNAN: He was a personality, for sure,
because he was alive and unpredictable.
In fact, his mantra was, "You can sleep when you're dead."
Cathie Hannan worked with Denis Handlin in 1979
when the company was still CBS Records
and he was the National Promotions Manager.
CATHIE HANNAN: When I first met him,
I thought he was just overly enthusiastic.
But, after a while, I realised that he would do anything at any cost
to get his product onto the top-100 charts.
And he was quite erratic and unpredictable
in his commands and his demands of staff.
Cathie loved the music business
but was appalled by the demands of Handlin.
She recalls an occasion where he hired a model for a topless promotion
at a local radio station.
CATHIE HANNAN: And she was to flash her chest
with 'I Want You To Want Me', the Cheap Trick single,
written in lipstick on her chest.
When the model didn't turn up, Handlin told Cathie SHE had to do it.
I was totally shocked. And there's absolutely no way I would do that.
I mean, for goodness' sake.
You're trying to keep your credibility in that industry,
so I refused.
I was later called back and told by Denis to come into the office,
and he banged on the desk and said, "You don't know how to do your job.
"I want your resignation in the morning."
So, I went home crying.
And in 1979 there was no recourse,
so I wrote up my resignation, delivered it the next day
and I left the next day.
ELEANOR MCKAY: Denis was very volatile, you know? I remember that.
And sort of being a bit shocked by how intense he was.
And, in both ways, like...
When he was happy,
you know, it was...the whole office was, you know, fun and games,
and when he was not, it was like, "Whoa, he's on the rampage,"
and everybody wanted to get out of the way.
As a secretary working under Handlin in 1985,
Eleanor McKay says he had an aggressive,
win-at-all-costs mentality.
ELEANOR MCKAY: He was hyper competitive,
he liked to win,
he didn't brook any opposition.
He was definitely of the 'if you weren't for him,
'you were against him',
and that was it, you know?
And, I remember, you know,
I don't know if I can swear, but I remember in the sales meetings
he'd get everyone to chant, you know, "Fuck EMI! Fuck Warners!"
You know, and, like...
So, it wasn't enough to go, "We're great, we're the best."
It's like, "Everybody else is shit."
You know, and that was kind of his approach.
(POP MUSIC PLAYS)
Handlin was a big drinker who liked to be the life of the party,
and he expected his team to follow his lead.
CBS, rock'n'roll heaven!
I'm sick of working till way past 11:00!
He was proud of his ruthless management style.
Budget's flowing! What're you gonna do when the taxman comes...
In a staff video obtained by Four Corners,
Handlin is seen dressed up as Hitler...
We all sleep better when we fuck EMI!
..in a parody of a Mel Brooks song.
Grab a chick!
ELEANOR MCKAY: I think, in an industry that tolerates...
Grab a beer! ..bad behaviour,
he was a star performer.
Said to myself...
.."Let's get the fuck out of here!"
So, it kind of says something about it,
when you actually shock people in music,
you're behaving pretty badly.
Alan Terrey was Denis Handlin's 2IC.
He's never before broken ranks with Sony Music.
ALAN TERREY: To me,
not to have done this interview would have been unconscionable
knowing what I know.
That's a big statement.
I couldn't go to my grave, in all honesty,
without telling the story.
As the Chief Financial Officer
throughout the '80s and most of the '90s,
Alan worked more closely with Handlin
than just about anyone else in the company.
ALAN TERREY: Initially I thought
we had a really, really good working relationship.
And we went on so many overseas trips together,
business trips together,
a lot of them were very enjoyable, a lot of them were very rewarding.
But his abuses later on became more and more hurtful.
What were the first signs of trouble?
Well, very early on, um...
..Denis called me into his office one morning and said,
"Alan, the receptionist now reports to you directly."
And I said, "Fine. OK."
He said, "Now, I want you to fire her."
I said, "She's been our receptionist for 10 years."
He said, "No, no, I want a younger, more attractive,
"sexier-looking person at the front desk
"to be the initial contact of the company."
So, that receptionist, after 10 years' service, was fired.
For Alan, it was a disturbing insight
into Handlin's obsession with control.
ALAN TERREY: Denis got consumed by power. No question about it.
It was his company. It was his train set.
And anyone below him, including myself as 2IC,
were basically puppets and he pulled all the strings.
And he demanded his actions to be followed,
and we, like puppeteers, were just pulled from side to side.
Under Handlin's regime,
Alan Terrey says he and other executives
were singled out and humiliated.
His day-to-day dealings with people
were pretty much at the executive level,
so they're the people
who really copped the abuse and the toxic behaviour.
Occasionally, he would bring some lower minion into a board meeting
and absolutely destroy them in front of his superior.
But it was meted out to everybody, nobody escaped.
ELEANOR MCKAY: The thing that really struck me
was he would sort of do really demeaning things.
Like, I remember, you know, there was one incident
where he dropped all the papers from his briefcase
and he made my boss, you know, get down and pick up all the papers.
And it wasn't just that they offered to do it,
like, he told them, "Pick that up!"
I used to say that the kindest thing I could say about Denis
was that he was sort of an equal-opportunity abuser,
you know, he was as mean to men as he was to women.
GREG LOCKHART: He was extremely controlling, manipulative
and he had a management philosophy
that 'If it wasn't broken, break it.'
Greg Lockhart was the keeper of secrets at Sony for 14 years.
As the head of Human Resources from 1987,
it was his job to clean up and cover up Denis Handlin's abuses.
GREG LOCKHART: I'd come into work of a day
and there would be someone every day
that I would have to put back together again
from some drama that Denis had created
the night before or the day before,
that was very traumatised.
And putting people back together again became a full-time job for me.
(ROCK MUSIC PLAYS)
ARCHIVE REPORTER: Meet head of Sony Music Australia, Denis Handlin.
Denis runs the Australian operations
of this huge, multinational corporation.
In the public eye, Denis Handlin was a self-promotion machine.
ARCHIVE REPORTER: Denis must try and sell as many albums as possible...
DENIS HANDLIN: The greatest self-satisfaction
that I get out of the business, to be totally frank,
is I'm an Australian person running an Australian company here...
GREG LOCKHART: He was an expert at creating an image for himself.
The amount of profile that he had
was phenomenal for such a small company.
I mean, it was breathtaking.
And it didn't matter how much it cost the company
to get that image for him.
By the late '90s
Handlin was CEO and now Chairman
of one of Australia's most successful record labels.
(CROWD SCREAMS)
He schmoozed with the world's biggest pop stars,
pushing their albums to the top of the charts and smashing sales.
(SCREAMING CONTINUES)
The company appeared to be a shining success
under Denis Handlin's leadership.
I really believe the Australian industry
is about to go through an exciting new era.
We're right in that now, we're right in that eye of change now.
But, behind the glossy facade, a mutiny was brewing.
Were things pretty bad by that stage?
Absolutely at crisis point.
It's one of those situations
that, if you didn't fight in the trenches of World War I,
you didn't know what it was like -
if you didn't work in Sony Music, you had no idea what it was like.
People thought they knew.
They knew that he was aggressive and a bully
and a very, very hard taskmaster,
but they didn't have any idea.
They just thought it was a typical, I guess, hard-boss situation.
But it went far beyond that.
GREG LOCKHART: There had been multiple times through the '90s
where I had told executives in New York what was happening,
about the drinking, the bullying and the whole thing
in the previous three or four years.
And nothing happened from that.
In June 1998
Sony's head office finally paid attention
when an executive brought over from the US
reported Handlin's behaviour.
Alan Terry received a phone call from New York.
They said, "Alan, what's it like working for Denis Handlin?"
And I said, "I'll give it to you in two words - utterly miserable."
Greg Lockhart says he was asked to write a report
for Sony's international president.
It was co-authored by three other executives, including Alan Terrey.
ALAN TERREY: And we all sat down and basically presented a report
that we wanted to be, above all, accurate.
It was a nine-page document
that was rather telling to anyone who reads it.
GREG LOCKHART: There isn't one executive I know
that I've worked with at Sony Music Australia
that wouldn't come out and support that document 100%.
It cannot be challenged,
you know, there are too many people that know too much.
The report obtained by Four Corners contained damning allegations.
Do you stand by those allegations?
100%.
Mm, yes, that's exactly right. He, um...
The power thing - in the end...
We felt we never worked for Sony Music in the end,
you worked for Denis Handlin.
The report revealed an annual staff turnover of up to 50%,
partly because of Handlin's extraordinary habit of firing people
for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
What would've happened if you'd said, "No, Denis"?
Well, I would've been gone.
He would've sacked you?
That's my opinion.
Two pages of the report
were dedicated to concerns about Handlin's drinking habits
and the impact it was having on the company.
But perhaps the most shocking allegation of all
was detailed by Greg Lockhart on the final page.
That just seems unfathomable
that a CEO would want his own staff followed by private detectives.
How did it feel to be carrying out that demand?
Oh, terrible.
Terrible.
And I welcomed the opportunity to actually tell New York.
It was just the sheer fact
that he actually requested such an event to happen
that horrified me.
You know, who says, you know,
"I run a company, I don't trust this person,
"I'm gonna get them followed to see what they're doing"?
I've never heard of it before.
And I hope I never hear of it again.
Initially, Sony's head office appeared to take the issue seriously.
Denis Handlin was suspended.
An investigation was launched,
with 10 Australian executives flown to New York for interviews.
GREG LOCKHART: It was amazing
because sitting in that room with me
were two executives
that I had discussed over the last three or four years
exactly what we were discussing in that room,
yet not one of them spoke up and said,
"Well, actually, Greg did tell us."
Phil Barter was the Financial Controller
and was asked to compile a special brief
on Handlin's use of company funds.
PHIL BARTER: I was asked about misuse of company funds
and to report on
examples of where Denis may have used company funds
for personal benefit rather than corporate benefit.
Phil Barter says he provided evidence of a dozen different occasions
when Handlin had allegedly spent company money on personal expenses,
including up to $15,000 on his school reunion in Brisbane.
PHIL BARTER There was three business-class airfares -
for Denis, his wife and the chauffeur.
There was a limousine hire for a car to use for the day.
There was, um...
An artist was paid,
a well-known Australian Sony Music artist performed.
To me, there was no question about could that be perceived
as something for the benefit of the company?
It should have been a personal expense.
The list also detailed an allegation
that Denis Handlin had spent company money at brothels.
ALAN TERREY: I think we probably expected that he would be sacked
with such a weight
of criticism and ammunition against him.
No-one would expect to keep him.
Publicly, Handlin spun his suspension as "medical leave"
due to his "punishing work ethic,"
and lashed out at "ridiculous rumours."
He's quoted in a September 1998 article saying:
We were getting all the assurances from New York -
indirectly in my case,
but through the HR Manager at the time, Director at the time -
was that he's not coming back.
But, three months into Denis Handlin's suspension,
a decision was handed down that shocked staff -
their CEO was returning.
PHIL BARTER: And that was the constant theme -
"He's not coming back. He's not coming back."
And then suddenly, "He's coming back."
And I... I remember the disbelief after all that had happened
that this was happening, that he was coming back.
And, um...
Yeah, it was just total disbelief.
ALAN TERREY: Well, they certainly knew of his issues...
..but we had been performing well.
We made a lot of money, made our budgets,
and I think on that scoreboard alone
they thought, "Well, he's doing a good enough job."
Fearing a mass walkout,
Sony offered 15 senior employees cash incentives to stay
totalling three-quarters of a million dollars.
PHIL BARTER: I was furious. I was insulted, to be honest.
I accepted it and was paid it,
but my first reaction was I was insulted.
It was almost like an admission
that, "We're doing the wrong thing, but we're going to do it anyway."
For Alan Terrey, it was the trigger to walk away.
ALAN TERREY: I knew my health was suffering.
I knew that it just wasn't acceptable to me
that the intrusiveness into my life would continue any longer.
No amount of money could have enticed me to go back.
And I just had this overwhelming relief
when I finally left the company,
that I was in charge of my life again.
Nine of the 10 executives involved
left Sony Music Australia within the next four years.
Denis Handlin emerged more powerful than ever,
not only within the company
but now as the Chairman of the ARIA board.
He'd gone through this typhoon and came out the other side,
survived out the other way,
so I think he must've felt he was untouchable.
Handlin's reign at Sony would continue for another two decades
and many more people would suffer.
SHANE EARLE: I was pretty well used
and thrown out.
Not only by Denis. By Sony Music itself.
Shane Earle worked as Denis Handlin's private chauffeur for four years.
SHANE EARLE: As far as I was concerned, I was his servant.
I was there for him, to serve him.
And I thought I was doing the right thing.
But I hung in for too long.
I got torn to pieces.
Inside Handlin's company car,
Shane Earle says he endured constant verbal and psychological abuse.
SHANE EARLE: It would be a hit and then a retraction.
Another hit and a retraction.
The problem was, as time went by,
the hits became much closer together.
All I was trying to do was do my job,
and I felt targeted,
I felt manipulated
and I certainly felt abused.
Shane kept diaries between 1998 and 2001
documenting Denis's escalating demands,
which included him working up to 90-hour weeks
and copping constant aggression.
SHANE EARLE: There's only so much you can put up with.
It might be just driving a car,
but you're trying to keep someone who's reasonably unhinged...
..keep them on track.
Not easy.
In one instance,
Shane picked up Handlin after a late-night drinking session
in Sydney's CBD.
SHANE EARLE: He had a little regular stop,
which was Harry's Cafe de Wheels,
a place where you buy a meat pie,
down near the naval base,
and a lot of people frequented,
especially in the early hours of the morning.
Handlin asked Shane for cash to buy a pie.
SHANE EARLE: "No, Denis, I don't have any money.
"Do you have any money? Because I don't."
All I got was, "F you! F you! F you!"
Screaming at the top of his voice.
Just acting like a...
..I don't know, a child
because he didn't get his meat pie.
Shane says the abuse escalated on the drive home.
SHANE EARLE: It was relentless.
I increased speed on the Harbour Bridge,
and I kept increasing my speed because I just wanted him out.
I was having so much trouble
processing the yelling and the screaming
and also trying to drive.
Got into the suburbs...
..and he threw a phone at my head.
So I stopped the car and I got out.
He said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "I'm leaving you."
So, I grabbed my gear...
..and I walked away.
When Shane was fired in March 2001,
he says he tried to tell Sony's New York head office
about the abusive behaviour.
He was paid out,
but, once again, nothing was done about Handlin.
When my tenure was over,
I thought I had an opportunity
to let New York know...
..that the beast was back.
'Cause that's all I can describe him as.
The first time, their warning was from the 10 executives.
The second time was me -
one small individual
calling out and saying, "Hey, you do have a serious problem here."
So, if the attitude was,
"Pff, he's just a small guy. He's just a driver.
"We can make this go away"...
Okey-dokey, the highest-selling Australian album.
The ARIA goes to Innocent Eyes, Delta Goodrem!
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
As head of Sony Music Australia and Chair of the ARIA board,
Denis Handlin wielded immense power.
Publicly he championed young female artists like Delta Goodrem.
Oh, goodness! Thank you so very much.
To my wonderful record company,
Denis Handlin for signing me when I was 15 years old,
and just your passion for music and your love for life
and of me as a person.
Thank you so much. I love you dearly.
But, behind the scenes,
Sony's female employees were being treated very differently.
MATTHEW MCQUADE: I would say it was
a very difficult place to be a female.
The laddish language, um...
..the objectification was... it was accepted in that environment.
I think I only saw on one case that really sort of offended my values,
where I was standing with Denis
and he started making sexual comments
about an employee I'd just hired.
Breasts, physique, those sort of things.
I mean, I would call it locker-room chat.
Matthew McQuade says Denis Handlin's attitudes towards women
had a profound impact on the company culture.
MATTHEW MCQUADE: I felt, because of the position of power,
it allowed people who wanted to have that laddish view of life
the free rein to do it.
And there were no consequences for doing it
because, ultimately, one person held all the power,
he set the tone.
IRENE SAUNDERS: It was so common
that the male executives
would comment and leer at these women to their face,
making comments about their bodies right out in the open,
you know, making leering comments
about their breasts or any part of their bodies
like they were just an object or a piece of meat.
And it was completely thought...
..you know, it was just par for the course.
Irene Saunders was the National Promotions and Publicity Manager
at Sony for six years.
She says the discrimination was most glaring
when female employees fell pregnant.
IRENE SAUNDERS: I started to notice
that as women would go off to have a child and be on maternity leave
that they just wouldn't come back.
And then it became like an open secret
that if you had a child at Sony
you'd be made redundant on maternity leave.
People just used to joke, like,
"Wow, how have you got kids at Sony? Haven't they gotten rid of you yet?"
Irene was forced out after taking maternity leave
to have her third child.
IRENE SAUNDERS: So, I was, you know, a few months off coming back
when I just got a phone call to come in for a meeting.
And I thought, "Ooh, here it is."
Um...
And I was told that... Well, first of all,
they expressed concerns that the type of job it is -
going to gigs and, you know, long hours and so on -
you know, "That's going to be tough to do with three kids, isn't it?"
And I thought to myself, "Denis has six kids."
You know, "Would you ask a man that?"
But then they said,
"Well, it looks like there's going to be a big restructure,
"there may not be a role for you,
"so you're going to be better off jumping first before you're pushed."
We've confirmed at least seven women were made redundant
while on maternity leave
over a six-year period up to 2013.
They were all paid cash settlements.
It sounds like Sony has done a pretty good job
of silencing women over the years.
Mm! A remarkable job.
A remarkable job.
I mean, it's always been a massive story
that has been waiting to come out,
and it could never come out while Denis was still at the helm
because people were so scared.
There would usually be a clause in there
to say that the terms of the termination couldn't be discussed,
um...
..once the monetary payment was received.
Did it feel like gag money?
Um... It was exactly gag money.
Tamara Georgopoulos worked at Sony Music from 2011 to 2015.
At first she enjoyed the lavish parties and VIP events.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: Often we'd pinch ourselves
and think, "We get to do this for a job. This is incredible.
"So many people would kill for a job like this."
But she soon realised it could be an awful place to be a young woman.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: The executives would get very, very drunk,
to the point of slurring their speech,
grabbing you, pulling you in for hugs, touching your body.
I began to dread these events...
..and I didn't enjoy them anymore.
Sometimes it felt as though we were there at events or in the office
to kind of be preyed upon and to not be taken seriously in our careers,
and that's how I felt
after being sexually harassed and being grabbed by executive men.
(BIRD CAWS)
Tamara says attractive, junior female employees
were often exclusively invited to party with senior male managers,
including visiting executives from Sony New York.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: I don't think that they can be over in the US
and pretend that they didn't know this was happening.
The US executives would often be at these events
with alcohol, with young girls, very intoxicated.
They had been at these events that I had been at
and they'd seen this behaviour.
So, they are fully aware.
And they are responsible.
They were negligent and they let this happen,
and they let this happen for decades.
Four Corners can reveal
Denis Handlin allowed two alleged perpetrators of sexual misconduct
to remain at the company
despite formal complaints against them.
In one incident in 2016,
a female employee alleged that during a work event at the Sony office
a naked male manager confronted her in a bathroom
and sexually assaulted her.
The woman reported it directly to Denis Handlin and HR.
Sony Music wrote to the woman:
Despite this, the alleged perpetrator
continued on in a senior role at Sony for several more years.
The female employee left the company
with an $80,000 payout and a non-disclosure agreement.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: Everyone in the music industry
knows about Sony Music.
It's widely known what kind of culture they foster and cultivate,
and, um...
..everyone's just swept it under the rug.
(VOCALISES)
Over the past 37 years,
the industry and Sony Music have endlessly rewarded Denis Handlin.
In 2014
he celebrated his 30th anniversary as CEO
and the company threw him a gala ball.
(SINGS) # Don't look like they're fading... #
A-list celebrities lined up to congratulate him.
30 years, congratulations.
(APPLAUSE) We like you a lot.
You've supported my music.
Congratu-(BLEEP)-lations.
Congratu-(BLEEP)-lations!
Congratulations. Slash here.
Denis, you are one of the best.
Thank you so much, Denis.
Thank you, Denis Handlin.
MAN: On with the show...
MATTHEW MCQUADE: Whether he was successful or not,
I don't think we can condone, if we are going to call it success,
the way the success was achieved.
That's not acceptable anymore.
No-one is untouchable.
(LAUGHTER) Tell me now.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
DEENA LYNCH: It's very clear that, in Sony Music Australia,
there was a culture of hiding things
and getting rid of the people who spoke up about it
rather than trying to attack the problem.
MAN: OK, roll camera.
Everyone, stand, show me your final looks.
No blinking.
And...play back!
(SINGS) # We're screaming
# That it's time for a change
# You tried to cover it up
# Why didn't anybody say... #
In 2020
the Australian music industry experienced its own MeToo moment...
..when independent artist Deena Lynch, who performs as Jaguar Jonze,
started speaking out about her experience of sexual assault.
DEENA LYNCH: I wanted people to know that they weren't alone
and I think I just wanted to fuel the fire
that was already starting to burn.
(SINGS) # Your own disease Ugh!
# Who died and made you king?
# Who died and made you king? #
It's just been such a long time of hiding and hiding and hiding
that it just took one little thread to unravel it all in the end.
See ya.
Her campaign led to a flood of online allegations
of sexual assault, abuse of power and bullying at major record labels.
(SIGHS)
Many of the complaints posted on social media were about Sony Music.
ELEANOR MCKAY: As soon as I read them, I actually felt sick,
and then I felt really angry,
really angry that it was still going on
and that it was still young...
..predominantly young women or junior staff
who were bearing the brunt
and they were the ones that had to speak out.
I don't know what it's looking like.
DEENA LYNCH: I think it created so much heat
that Sony had one choice,
which was, "Are they going to do something about it
"or are they going to take on the heat directly?"
They really had no choice anymore.
As the heat turned up on Sony, Denis Handlin had to do something,
so he sacked his Vice President, Tony Glover,
a company veteran of 17 years...
No, I didn't.
..who was facing complaints from female employees.
You've been accused
of bullying, harassment and inappropriate touching.
What do you say to that?
Um... Well, I was not ever aware
that that was a thing with me
during my career at Sony Music.
It was never made aware to me at any time
until I was served with a document in February this year.
You've been described to me as a 'compulsive groper'.
What do you make of that?
It shocks me.
You can probably tell by the look on my face
that, um...
..I have...
..I have no knowledge of that.
And I don't know why someone would say that.
If that's what they think, I apologise.
What is it that drives you
to sit here today and speak publicly about what's happened?
You know, there was certain social-media sites
that were bringing the heat towards record companies
and certainly our record company.
And, in my mind, I think someone had to pay for that.
And, um...
So, are you saying you're a scapegoat?
Yeah, I think so. I think so.
And I think that, you know, the thinking was,
"The heat's coming, we need to do something about this.
"What's the best way to deal with it?
"Let's take out a senior exec.
"Look, we've fixed the problem and nothing to see here. Move on."
Tony Glover's scalp wasn't enough to save Denis Handlin.
On June 21 he was sacked.
No explanation was given by the company
except that it was "Time for a change."
Three other executives have also since left.
GREG LOCKHART: Shouldn't they let people know
why Denis Handlin isn't working for the company any more?
The official statement says
that they agreed that it was time for a change of management,
but no-one is satisfied with that comment.
Nobody.
Not people who've worked there. Not people who have left.
People want to know that Sony Music New York
has taken the correct action
to dismiss an employee for the reasons he's been dismissed for.
Denis Handlin declined to be interviewed by Four Corners
but in a statement said:
Sony Music said in a statement
it takes bullying, harassment and other inappropriate behaviour
very seriously,
and the allegations it's investigating
have only recently come to light.
The words ring hollow for those who worked there.
TAMARA GEORGOPOULOS: I can't help but be really disappointed
in the people that kept that man in that position
after knowing about this behaviour for decades.
They were warned about this and they kept that man there.
And now there are so many more people
that have been hurt and had their careers ruined,
and so many women that have left the industry altogether...
..because...
..they just chose to look the other way.
SHANE EARLE: Sony Music, internationally,
needs to be questioned as to how this could ever occur.
Yeah, he's been removed from his position.
Yeah, they're lying on the ground, waiting for dust to settle.
But it can't be like that.
We've got to... (SIGHS)
It's got to go out there so that...
..so that this can't occur again.
GREG LOCKHART: These people were traumatised.
And until they see New York stand up
and have the guts to come out and face the music on this,
which is what everyone's expecting,
this story is not going to go away.
Captions by Red Bee Media
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation