89x morning show – RIP?
I really wish I could get the 89x streaming to work right now, ’cause I’m reasonably certain I was just listening to them get canned over the air.
Apparently someone was in the bathroom with the lights out at their station, and they did a whole show on it, interrogating people in the office and the like, saying he might have been masturbating. Then they got an email from their boss telling them to lay off, and they took callers on whether that was kosher or not.
Now, they’re often jack-asses, but when I’ve had enough of NPR, they’re the only thing on the air that isn’t boring as hell. This time, they were stupid as hell.
If anyone is listening, I’d love to hear the blow-by-blow gossip.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090712/ENT03/907120312/1038/Radio-ratings-shakedown
With ratings like that I wouldn’t bet against the possibility. Then again the whole thing could be a setup. It wouldn’t be the first time that a free-wheeling adhoc type morning show turned out to be scripted.
My stepbrother Jeff used to be a morning show guy for a top-40 station in Arkansas. One day something was wrong with the tower, resulting in somewhere around two hours of dead air. Jeff and his partner got the station manager to record a message personally apologizing for the offensive content of the morning show which had forced the station to take the show off the air. The manager assured the audience that the incident would not happen again.
Then the two guys left for a full week on their previously scheduled vacations.
This was years ago, and there are STILL rumors flying about “what really happened”.
Years ago here, a local morning show started having “interference issues” where someone was tapping into their airwaves and saying obnoxious stuff. They were asking anyone with information to please help them find the responsible person/people doing it. Then they released that it was apparently a mobile unit, set up in the back of a van with major radio equipment. All along, the culprits would randomly break through the station and just say whatever, taunting people, etc.
The radio station (particularly the morning show and a few key DJs during the day) eventually had people from all over searching for ‘the bad guys’ in a van, reporting possible matches to local police stations and calling into the radio station with what may be sitings if they saw a similar van driving around.
Needless to say, it all came to a head and it was a hoax formulated by a handful of the DJs. People were MAD to say the least because so many listeners were really trying to help.
All of the DJs involved were fired immediately, on the air, when their big boss got word (who owned several stations) and unexpectedly interrupted the morning show the next day and said that their “services were no longer needed” and that they needed to pack up and get out of the station immediately.
It was awesome. (and all over the newspapers the following day… haha!)
I stopped finding them amusing about a year ago, but yeah, everyone else is boring and WRIF is vomit-inducingly racist at least once an hour, so I’ve been known to change the channel to 89X’s “listen to us talk about poop and boobs hour” when NPR becomes obvnoxious and I don’t have my MP3 player (which I’ve been very careful to remember lately, lest I kill another driver with my rage. Rage goes through auto-glass, you know).
It’d be funny if they got shitcanned, though I’m sure they’ll be replaced with something even less entertaining or useful, and it’s too bad that they couldn’t go out, you know, over something at all useful or meaningful. Then again, you get the impression that their combined IQ is 110 (80 each for the guys, and -50 for the chick who giggles along with all their dumb jokes), so maybe that’s the best they can hope for.
Vomit-inducingly racist – I would agree with that. Which reminds me of the singularly most annoying tagline in the history of radio (that I’ve heard), 96.3’s “Today’s Music, without the Rap”.
Seriously, 96.3, WTF is your demographic? Do you really think you’re competing with the Rap station for most of your listeners? Not to mention, how much rap do you think is on the radio these days, even on stations that focus on a black demographic?
I remember when one local station disappeared (because they all got canned for a complete rebranding by owner), they played “it’s the end of the world as we know it” over and over for their final hour.
Hehe, okay, way to go out with class for that last station; that’s awesome.
Thanks for the invite yesterday, by the way! My boy & I were already committed to other (much more dull) things by the time I got it, but we definitely agree that we want to come to one when we can. They do sound fun!
It’ll be good to meet you some time. :) Wednesdays are pretty reliable during the summer for our gatherings!
Man, I remember 96.3. That was my “check first” station when I lived in metro Detroit.
96.3 used to be THE radio station to listen to in the mid-to-late 90’s.
Such memories.
That was The Planet, wasn’t it?
Indeed, I miss it, especially the Sunday Morning show.
Even in the early 90’s! I loved 96.3 back in the day.
No, but they started using it when 95.5 went from the nice white suburban station to the channel for preteens who like phone scams and a lot of MTV stereotyping (the morning show has a black woman on it who is basically like this fake-ghetto ambassador to the white folk) with a lot of dance/rap music.
96.3 was like “Hey, lets step in and be as white as possible!” and came up with that tag line.
Since I got satellite radio a few years ago, I haven’t listened to 30 seconds of local music radio. It’s amazing how little I miss DJs.
When I lived in Phoenix, in the early 90’s, a station was sold and they had a problem with their FCC license or somesuch. For 3 days all the station played was wind blowing and the ticking of a clock. Both at the same time. At irregular intervals the whispery line from field of dreams could be heard to say, “If you build it, they will come.” They must have cut the broadcast power during this time to save money/ increase interest because you had to turn your radio WAY up to hear it.