"Sexy Santas" cause outrage at Seven staff meeting
Channel 7 has come under fire after footage of a routine staff meeting featured scantily clad dancers dressed as Santa.
The meeting of Seven Network parent company Seven West Media in Perth was held on Friday to introduce a series of new hires and appointments, while deputy news director Ray Kuka also discussed upcoming programming for the rest of the year.
As part of the announcement, Kuka spoke of Perth’s annual Christmas Pageant on December 7th, when Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas started playing and a group of female dancers wearing Santa hats and short red dresses appeared and started dancing.
Female staff who watched on were said to have been "dumbstruck and horrified" by the bizarre scene, with The Australian Financial Review claiming many likened the dancers to "sl*tty elves".
A photo of the event was shared online and drew heavy criticism, as one worker shared that the performance prompted a mass walk out of outraged staffers.
“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,” one person wrote online.
“That will help fix the culture issues which have been uncovered.”
A spokesman for Seven West Media defended the dancers, explaining that they were part of the Christmas Pageant, which is a “Perth institution”.
The footage of the meeting comes as Seven faces a series of internal challenges as they fight allegations of being a "toxic" workplace.
Ryan Stokes, the managing director of Seven Group Holdings Ltd, recently called inappropriate behaviour in media an "industry-wide problem".
Stokes said it was "disappointing that there is a perception [that] inappropriate behaviour" was tolerated at Seven because "we don't tolerate any inappropriate behaviour".
Image credits: Seven West Media