O & A brought in the ratings for Infinity Broadcasting, not only in NYC but in syndication all around the US.
I don’t know what they replaced them with short-term, and no idea what WNEW/IB can replace them with on a longer basis - WNEW got nixed from my cars’ radio dial when they went Talk.
Maybe you remember the Air Florida flight that took off from Washington National (Now Reagan National) in 1982. (quick googol) Here’s a detailed link
Howard Stern called Air Florida the next day and asked what the fare for a flight to the 14th Street Bridge cost.
Actually Corbomite, Stern didn’t. It was a staged call, done in a production room. He admitted that, and if the truth be known, I heard it when it aired.
Stern did use a tragedy for humor. Pushing the ‘envelope’ and such. I don’t tune into the stuff nowadays (though I used to listen to Stern when he was on in the afternoon on my way to Polytech in Brooklyn. Boy does that date me!)
O&A were fired because of the Board of Directors of Infinity Broadcasting need to protect their political viability. O&A were on the air last Friday. Apparently the board needed the weekend to decide to put the show on hold and another day to realize that ‘the envelope’ has been pushed too far and to fire them (though O&A have a two year contract)
So to that extent, I’m with SmackFu. Infinity gave in.
I never liked their show. I never found it remotely funny. I don’t mind “shock radio,” I just thought it was lame.
I am so happy this happened! Not only are they talentless rejects, they spoiled the movie “Signs” for me. My father and I were going to see the movie one night, and as I’m flipping threw the radio stations, I hear O&A are talking about it. I wanted to hear what other people thought of it, so I listened, and they gave away the WHOLE ENDING! No warning at all… they just gave away the ending. It was RIGHT when the movie came out too.
I hope their show doesn’t get picked up by anyone else, they lose all their money, and they have to eat each other for food!
Yes, but the FCC can’t enforce decency standards unless they get a complaint letter from a listener, and the complaint letter happened in this case to be from the Catholic League. They don’t just monitor radio broadcasts and look for violations – if nobody complains, there’s no violation. The FCC’s letter of inquiry to WNEW/Infinity can be read in a PDF file here. The CL has said that, as far as they’re concerned, they’re happy and the FCC needn’t proceed with an investigation, but the FCC may just decide to go ahead anyway. Although I doubt it – Michael Powell’s FCC regularly bends over for broadcasters.
So, going by your way of thinking it would be perfectly fine if O& A did nothing but chant “Muslims suck ass!!! Go and blow up your local mosque.” four hours a day, right?
I’d rather getting O&A off the air had been accomplished through private channels, such as a boycott. As soon as the FCC jumps in, you’ve basically got government telling you what is and isn’t appropriate, essentially making moral judgments.
I agree the radio hosts went too far, and they deserved to be slapped down…but by the consumers and advertisers that fund their show, not the federal government. Not that I mourn their passing any more than I’ll mourn Howard Stern’s eventual comeuppance.
Not quite, Rex. There are standards established for what is and is not appropriate for broadcast. The FCC enforces these standards. A broadcast station’s license is contingent on following these standards. O&A probably violated those standards, so the FCC is investigating to see if any action can be taken against WNEW/IB.
O&A’s firing was a private decision made by WNEW or IB. The FCC didn’t have any involvement in that.
The FCC didn’t slap anybody down. The only action that the FCC has taken is to send a letter of inquiry to WNEW/Infinity Broadcasting asking them a series of questions intended to elicit information about IB’s level of involvement in O&A’s programming decisions. That’s it. They have not levelled any fines, they have not done anything with regards to WNEW’s license, they did not have O&A removed from the air, and they did not fire or require to be fired O&A. Sweet Jeebus, I wish people would read links and have some knowledge before the post.
In the general case, however, it’s perfectly appropriate for the FCC to make these kinds of judgements regarding licenses and programming if they receive complaints from listeners. Radio spectrum is a limited resource, and the government grants broadcast licenses to entities giving them the exclusive right to broadcast on a particular frequency in a particular area – and this is the important part – in the public interest. Those words appear on every single FCC license. If a broadcaster is not acting in the (admittedly very loosely defined) public interest, the FCC has every right to take that exclusive right to use that frequency and give it to someone else.
pld is correct. The FCC mainly works on complaints from listeners. That’s why sometimes you hear unbleeped songs playing late at night. The reason is that nobody has complained to the FCC about that station playing that song. With the sheer volume of complaints recieved by the FCC about this item (~200,000), they had to react. I believe the thinking was “If we let this pass, what will we censor?”
Maybe it’s time to stop assigning bandwidth on the basis of the “public interest.” What should “public interest” have to do with radio? Why not just let the station with the most powerful signal drown out the others, or the wealthiest station buy the nearby frequency stations out of business? Seems alright to me.
Keep certain frequencies prohibited from commercial broadcast for government security interests, but other than that let the radio stations compete just like everyone else. A guy here in Columbia lost his FCC license for a statutory rape conviction that had nothing to do with the radio station, seemed kind of silly to me.
We tried that, prior to the formation with the FCC. You know what the result was? Chaos. Stations stepping on each other all over the place, with nothing listenable coming out of it. Broadcasters asked the government to help, and they did – they split up the spectrum into licenses and gave out licenses. As a libertarian myself, I can recognize a market failure when I see one.
What’s more, electromagnetic spectrum is a public good like air or water. Why should only commercial interests have access to it? Because with your suggestion, that’s exactly what would happen. It’s bad enough that the FCC has refused to license LPTV or low-power radio stations run by small community broadcasters, and have set up their rules to discourage interference even on third and fourth adjacent frequencies and contours.
I’m up in Maine and we get Don & Mike on tape delay from 3:00-7:00. I recall hearing something brewing between D&M &O&A but I never managed to get all the details. If you have the time, would you care to fill me in?
I know that D&M are no longer on WNEW, but not why they left.
I think Don and Mike left because of a combination of 2 factors. One, they had absolutely horrible ratings in NY. Two, they were feuding with O&A. Feuding with the stations top ratings draw while you yourself are getting crappy ratings is a great way to guarantee you get dropped.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about O&A leaving. At times they could be hilariously funny, but lately they just seem to have been cruel and disgusting. IMHO, this latest prank wasn’t even the worst thing they’ve ever done. The worst was when they kicked Stalker Patty off the show. The sheer cruelty of that act was the absolute worst thing they’ve done.
