Kyle Sandilands might consider himself a shock jock, but it seems the threats aimed at a news.com.au journalist have gone beyond common decency for 11 sponsors who have decided to jump from the 2Day FM ship and leave it at a loss of around $8 million.
Sparking the fall-out was comments made by Sandilands about journalist Alison Stephenson over her report on Kyle and Jackie O's TV show - A Night With The Stars that aired on Channel Seven on Monday night.
Reporting on the ratings that started at 1.4 million viewers but dropped to 200,000 by the show's end, and quoting tweets that were less than complimentary to Kyle and Jackie O's television offerings was enough to set Kyle off on a verbal rampage the following day.
Derogatory remarks about Ms Stephenson included calling her a "fat slag", "troll" and a "piece of s**t". These were then followed with the threat "Watch your mouth, girl, or I will hunt you down".
Social networks went into angry meltdown with #VileKyle quickly trending on the Twitterverse.
The protests from the public didn't stop with Facebook and Twitter - online petitions were launched, demanding sponsors to drop Kyle and Jackie O or risk a boycott of all products.
Holden were the first to jump ship with the Good Guys following soon after. They were followed by Vodafone, Blackmores, Mazda, Telstra, GIO Insurance, Fantastic Furniture, Crazy John's and even the Federal Government.
The latest from news.com.au hints that remaining sponsors Toys R Us, Qantas and Mitsubishi are teetering on the brink of withdrawing their support to the show.
Despite a weak apology from Sandilands and another coming from Southern Cross Austereo Chief Executive, Rhys Holleran who said that "Southern Cross Austereo does not condone his sentiments and is addressing issues with Kyle personally," the public appears to want to see the fall of 'King Kyle' from both radio and television.
With millions of dollars of sponsorship disappearing at a rapid rate - one has to ask if Southern Cross Austereo management will keep Sandilands or make him abdicate his throne to take on unemployment.
Information from news.com.au and B&T Today. For more details, read some of the articles below:
The original article that sparked the wrath of Kyle
The beginning of the end of a lot of lucrative sponsors
The latest chapter: The $8m man
