Yates refutes Pye TV shadowban claims

The Triple Eight enduro driver has made numerous claims on his Apex Hunters United podcast that he is being deliberately left out of the broadcast when possible.

The genesis to the supposed shadowban is Pye’s general criticism of the series via the increasingly popular AHU platform.

Pye naturally featured as part of the Sandown 500 coverage, particularly post-race given he and Will Brown triumphed on the pre-Bathurst enduro.

However he has remained adamant that he has only been given air time when absolutely necessary.

“At Sydney, they were told not to interview me, not to cut to me on camera or where possible frame me out,” said Pye in a recent AHU episode.

“And then at Sandown, I was then told on Sunday night and Monday that it was reiterated to them that you don’t frame Scotty.”

Yates took exception to those claims during an appearance on the Rusty’s Garage podcast, where she said it was a disappointing view and “simply not true”.

“I have to say I was pretty disappointed to hear those comments too,” Yates told host Greg Rust, after he had expressed his own disappointment of the claims.

“Simply not true. We are there to represent absolutely everybody.

“We do not single out anybody. It doesn’t work like that. You know, you’ve worked in TV long enough to know, we’re there to tell the story.

“Scott Pye was absolutely part of the story. He was in our broadcast all the time. I think if you go and you look back on when we spoke to him, we’ve got lots of teams and drivers to share the love to, because we’ve got to tell the whole story, not just one part of the story.

“I thought Scott was brilliant post-race in the interview that I did with him and Will Brown. Sharing that moment with them was awesome. He did a brilliant job. It’s great to see him having success.

“It’s disappointing to think that he would think that of us too, because we’re there, as I said, to represent absolutely everybody.

“I hope he has a think about it and understands. That’s just not the case at all.”

This isn’t the first flashpoint of controversy for Pye via his podcast, after he received a legal letter for comments made regarding Erebus Motorsport last month.