Posted on 08/23/2002 10:39:14 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
[EXCERPTS]
Shock Jocks Fired After St. Pat's Sex Stunt
NEW YORK, 11:03 a.m. EDT August 23, 2002 -
Opie and Anthony are over and out.
The New York-based shock jocks, under fire from angry Catholic groups for broadcasting a live account of a couple allegedly having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral, had their nationally syndicated show canceled Thursday.
"Based on recent events, the Opie and Anthony Show has been canceled, and will be replaced by other programming beginning Friday," Waced by programming to be determined separately by each station. He didn't know what WNEW would air in its time slot, and the station referred all inquiries to McClintock.
The pair had been pulled off the airwaves on Monday, three days after the sexual stunt was aired.
.....The FCC had been flooded with hundreds of complaints about the show.......
The decision to sack the shock jocks and their highly rated afternoon drive-time show was hailed by William Donohue, head of the 350,000-member Catholic League.......
......Donohue said his group would back off its call for the FCC to pull WNEW's broadcast license and fine Infinity.
"It's over," he said. "I'm satisfied."
FCC spokesman David Fiske said Friday that its investigation of the incident would continue.
"The fact that they've made a management decision with a station doesn't affect the conduct of the investigation," Fiske said.
....... Charges of acting in concert were still pending against Opie and Anthony producer Paul Mercurio, 42, who provided a running account of the encounter via cell phone.
The Opie and Anthony show was nationally syndicated in 17 markets outside New York City, including Cleveland, Dallas, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Washington, D.C.
It was the second firing in four years for Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia. The pair was canned in 1998 by a Massachusetts station after announcing on April Fool's Day that Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino was killed in a car crash.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
They are just putting a good face on it (that is the nihilist arrogance that reeks when scum try such antics and it blows up in their faces). It's called pride. But believe me, these two were quivering like beat dogs the day after the event on air when their participators were arrested, their mobile reporter hauled off too, and the lawyers called them in big time to tell them some big stuff was comin' down from the FCC in DC.
My message to Sam Adams: No more Sam Adams in My House, and I'm telling my family and friends to follow suit.
No offense to our SamAdams76
Here is a paragraph from TSG story:
Contest winners were to be awarded a trip to Boston for a music festival sponsored by Samuel Adams. In fact, Jim Koch, the publicly-held brewery's chairman/spokesman, was actually present--and apparently enjoying himself--in the Opie and Anthony studio as the public sex contest occurred and official "spotters" like Mercurio called in with updates from the field.
Here is a picture of Jim Koch in the Opie & Anthony studio (from an earlier time):
Where on The Smoking Gun? I searched for "Koch," "Sam Adams," "Mercurio," "St. Patrick's," "Loretta Lynn" and "Opie" and found nothing.
Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Cardinal O'Connors funeral.
Should read "Shock Jocks Dumb & Dumber Fired After St. Pat's Sex Stunt on Radio in NYC!!!"
The mission is only partly accomplished. The station still has its license.
Opie and Dopey are not responsible corporate officials. Responsible corporate officals recruited these characters, knowing what they were like, and hired them because of it.
Also, this "Sex for Sam" contest had "rules" and a point structure that certainly established a reasonable expectation that the station was shopping for precisely this end point. Heck, they even had a producer on site to ensure the broadcast of the desecration of this church on a Holy Day of Obligation.
William Donahue had been greatly reduced in my estimation since he has pronounced himself "satisfied" with the "outcome" in the firing of these two.
These two are among the less responsible in the corporate hierarchy. They, after all, were simply doing precisely what they had been hired to do! Additionally, they have no broadcast license to protect.
Ultimately, Opie and Dopey will be hired in some other location, at an increase in pay, and this firing will be seen as a "badge of honor", a positive notation on their curricula vitae, that these guys can really deliver the goods, when it comes to bad taste on the air.
And Mr. Donahue is "satisfied" with this.
This leaves FCC Chairman Powell out there alone to push for yanking WNEW's license. He is now lacking the political and popular support for that outcome, now that Donahue is "satisfied" that he finally got what he wanted "all along".
This was textbook, precisely on point and plain language violation of the terms of WNEW's broadcast license. It was "obscene" (the commission of a sex act for purile entertainment purposes). It was "indecent" (the sex act was committed in public, and in front of witnesses). and it was "profane" (the act profaned and desecrated a house of worship, during a religious service on a holy day).
And, to top it all off, WNEW "management" was so "upset" by all of this, that they waited three days to pull this show off the air! I'm not talking about the fact that these guys were furloughed immediately, I am talking about the fact that WNEW ran "best of" shows for three days. I mean, they weren't sure if they were going to fire these guys for THREE DAYS, and they were still running their stuff for those three days.
Management knew, or should have known!
They approved, condoned and broadcast the entire contest. Heck, since the prize had a "value" the contest, its rules and its conditions had to have been reviewed and approved by the company's legal department! In advance!
This was a willful act by the entire corporation!
But I guess if Mr. Donahue is satisfied, ....
Boycott Sam Adams. Pull the station's license.
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