Disk Jockeys, a human right to say goodbye on your last shift.

[michael hagerty]

Even jocks you know won't cause trouble can be considered too big a risk.

In January, 1972, after 14 months in morning drive at KHJ, Charlie Tuna was told that Robert W. Morgan was being brought back. They offered Charlie his old midday show, but he refused.

Charlie was going to be allowed to do a last show on Saturday morning. The news broke on some of the TV newscasts Thursday night and people were calling the station. Charlie didn't put any calls on the air, and didn't mention the situation until the end of the Friday show, when he noted the reports, said they were true and that "tomorrow will be my last show for KHJ...destination unknown"... and that since his engineer, Walt "Failsafe" Radtke and newsman J. Paul Huddleston didn't work Saturdays, he wanted to say goodbye and thank you to them now.

That was it. "See you tomorrow morning at six".

Except PD Ted Atkins thought that was too much...the audience that was expecting Charlie Tuna's farewell show on Saturday found Bill Wade on the air instead.

Anybody who knows Tuna (I don't, but we have mutual friends) knows that he's a great guy who doesn't burn bridges (in fact, KHJ hired him back for mornings five years later)...but Atkins didn't want to take that chance.

 

[Lopaka]

Its a bit different situation but very frequently when a member of a TV news crew moves on to a new station, or retires, there are friendly good-byes.

The last days of XEAK 690 were very weird, 3 days of some truly strange song followed by a replay of the 1951 (?) World Series (The Giants won the pennant!, etc), the ceremonial retirement of the XEAK call letters and then the first XETRA News newscasts.

 

[michael hagerty]

Its a bit different situation but very frequently when a member of a TV news crew moves on to a new station, or retires, there are friendly good-byes.

The last days of XEAK 690 were very weird, 3 days of some truly strange song followed by a replay of the 1951 (?) World Series (The Giants won the pennant!, etc), the ceremonial retirement of the XEAK call letters and then the first XETRA News newscasts.

Jocks who are leaving of their own accord to another market were usually given that courtesy. For example, Robert W. Morgan's last show on KHJ before leaving for WIND, Chicago....Bobby Ocean's last show at KCBQ, when he thought he was leaving radio for good...Chuck Browning's final sign-off on KFRC when he transferred within RKO to KHJ....Dick Whittinghill's last show on KMPC when it was thought that he was moving to Sundays and then retiring (he instead quit and wound up across the street less than two years later).

The riskiest ones I can remember (relatively) recently were Scott Shannon getting a last show after being fired from Pirate Radio and KIIS-FM allowing Rick Dees to do a last show before Ryan Seacrest took over. Rick handled it gracefully, but the audience emotion was such that it was hardto imagine an upside for KIIS.

 

[wadio]

Saying goodbye on the air is no longer a big deal. These days listeners know where to find you. Set up a website (or a Facebook page if you're lazy) ... type a nice goodbye note ... fans will Google you ... done.

 

[Bongwater]

Saying goodbye on the air is no longer a big deal. These days listeners know where to find you. Set up a website (or a Facebook page if you're lazy) ... type a nice goodbye note ... fans will Google you ... done.

That actually depends on how well established you are. In radio, people come and go. Often.

 

[davideduardo]

The riskiest ones I can remember (relatively) recently were Scott Shannon getting a last show after being fired from Pirate Radio and KIIS-FM allowing Rick Dees to do a last show before Ryan Seacrest took over. Rick handled it gracefully, but the audience emotion was such that it was hardto imagine an upside for KIIS.

And those of us in radio for a while know lots of stories of off-air negative reactions.

The fired jock who took a bulk eraser to all the commercial and music carts (when carts existed, of course) while "cleaning out his stuff.." or the jock who "went to get his stuff in the production room" who peed in the console... or took a wiz in the auxiliary transmitter so it did not go on when needed a week later in drive time... and many more.

If being fired causes that kind of reaction off the air, one can imagine the potential for insult, profanity or other inappropriate stuff when angry talent is allowed to do a swan song...

 

[pjc1961]

The riskiest ones I can remember (relatively) recently were Scott Shannon getting a last show after being fired from Pirate Radio and KIIS-FM allowing Rick Dees to do a last show before Ryan Seacrest took over. Rick handled it gracefully, but the audience emotion was such that it was hardto imagine an upside for KIIS.

Gee, premonition here, Mr. Hagerty? You may add KHHT-FM to Rick's list - see here.

Ironic that this thread and the new Rick Dees thread were together at the top of the L.A. board when I first saw the news.

 

[JPT]

I remember years ago (probably late 1979) during one of Sweet Dick Whittington's tenures at KGIL, the station decided to switch its music format from Top 40 to Standards, and Dick was none too pleased. Not that he played a lot of music during his show, but he was still incredibly irritated and made his thoughts known on the air.

One morning, a few days before the format change, he put on the Andrew Sisters' "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree" and walked out. Newsman Ed Ziel came on when the song was finished and said something like, "I don't know what to tell you folks, but he just left...he's gone." That was it for Sweet Dick at KGIL...at least until his next go-around there a few years later.

 

[michael hagerty]

Saying goodbye on the air is no longer a big deal. These days listeners know where to find you. Set up a website (or a Facebook page if you're lazy) ... type a nice goodbye note ... fans will Google you ... done.

That actually depends on how well established you are. In radio, people come and go. Often.

And if you're not well established, then the whole thing's kinda moot.

 

[Silkie]

Maybe they're afraid of something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=500deEeCOcA

 

[raccoonradio]

Often there are worries that a DJ or talk host could slam the station/owners, or listeners would call up on air and get all upset/emotional. There are times when a host retires (like Steve Leveille did recently on WBZ) and they did some final shows, chances to say goodbye (of course in his case his final show was only a couple days after he announced his retirement and some wonder if CBS
was pushing him out the door quickly--yeah you can say goodbye but be gone by the end of the week, and claim it's YOUR idea to retire. Maybe it was, who knows.)

Situations are often like this:
Thu.: a host like Jen Brien of WRKO does her show as normal. Presumably at the conclusion she's
told that was it, she's gone. Fill in or a syndie show repeat on Fri, new host on Monday.

New hosts sometimes have to answer for a change. At WEEI Boston, Mike Adams took over
for Ted Sarandis who was laid off. One of his first callers was "Ray from Lynn" a baseball fan
who was a regular caller of Ted's and he was asking what was up, why was Ted gone, etc.
and Mike had to explain a couple things. Ray finished his call, not too happy about things.

In many jobs you hear someone say "did you hear, they walked out xxx earlier today". Someone
got fired and they're told to clean out their locker and then management escorts them out...In radio often DJs or hosts are told that's it, they're gone, and they're not given the opportunity to do a last show.

When WODS Boston changed to Amp last week, the word came out mid-afternoon. Daily hosts
were absent from the air (got word somehow) and by 3 pm a message came on saying "Thank you for listening to WODS for the past 25 years. Tomorrow at noon we'll bring you a new choice." with info about how the old format would be on HD2 and online (no hosts of course). But CBS _did_
give their hosts a chance to say goodbye just before the changeover. That ended about a half
hour earlier than expected (one host started to mention other stations he'd worked for, including one Clear Channel outlet that was apparently the aim of the format change)--though they said
"we were told politely to wrap it up a bit early, we didn't do anything wrong"...

Also I mentioned Steve Leveille of WBZ. He apparently found out the hard way he was let go/
contract not renewed. Morgan White Jr was filling in and someone called and said they heard that
Steve was history at the station...Morgan hadn't heard anything about it. He did get brought back after a facebook-led protest.
Moe Lauzier of WRKO was about to do his last show but didn't know it would be his last. I think his producer was told to tell him at the end of his show that he was gone. He mentioned it during the start of the show, so Moe was able to at least tell his listeners this was going to be it.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I grew up in farm country. When I was 3, my dad bought his first farm. If was freshly bulldozed forest land. (That's a stretch if you have seen Texas coastal mesquite, cactus, sage brush and tumbleweeds!) For about six or seven years my dad knew every day that he worked the fields what the old timers were talking about when they said "They were plowing new ground." (hidden, buried tree roots play nasty with the farm equipment.)

Corporate America, including broadcasting, is plowing new ground. For personnel matters, we have never been right here before, and "we don't know for sure how to set the plow."

In 2000 I was working for a DOT.COM company that was tumbling down-hill to DOT.BUSTED. We common-folk didn't know it at the time. I got my coffee from the same coffee pot as the company president during the last days, and I didn't see it coming. I had to show him how the coffee pot worked his first week on the job.

Phone calls used to be expensive. A company that had installations or manufacturing scattered across the country did not have to worry about employees at various locations communicating with each other.... unless there was a union involved that could open up the inter-plant communications pipeline.

By 2000, it was a new picture. Phone calls were cheap, to the point of being free. And there was this new Internet thingy... which the rank-and-file were learning how to set up Yahoo groups and forums, while management worried about the big picture. When it became common for one firing in one office out of 55 or 60 to be known in every installation nationwide within minutes, management faced employee reactions never experienced before.

When our company slammed the doors shut one Friday afternoon and never re-opened come Monday morning (nation wide!) it wrapped up several months of rumors, lies, information, and misinformation like none of us had ever seen before.

Move that scenario over into broadcasting and you have the audience and the advertisers plugged into Facebook and discussion forums along with the employees. If somebody farts during a newscast in Tucson, it may be common knowledge among interest folks in Bangon and Seattle within 3-1/2 hours.

We cannot expect the traditions of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s to still work today.

If you tried to find a lawyer in 1965 to take your case if you felt the employer has treated you poorly, you wouldn't get much encouragement for the law firms. (I had to battle a non-compete agreement gone bad in 1966.) With today's abundant supply, over supply of lawyers, and a whole new attitude about employer/employee relationships, it is easy to understand why station management is so hesitant to give any opportunity for folks to say good-bye.

When did "going postal" become part of our slang in this country? Was it maybe in the 1980s?

 

[searadiofreak]

Every situation is different, and every manager has every right to handle it the way he/she deems appropriate. If the talent is leaving on good terms, and there is a high amount of trust between manager and employee, then most likely the risk is very small. Even "very small" is too much for some employers.

If the talent is being fired for cause, or an obvious breach of station and/or FCC rules, then the risk is higher and any smart manager would not allow the talent to go back on the air for legal, ethical, and possible damage to the station image reasons.

If the talent is moving to a competitive station, there is no reason to let him/her go back on the air.

The OP's premise is way off base and unrealistic.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Every situation is different, and every manager has every right to handle it the way he/she deems appropriate. If the talent is leaving on good terms, and there is a high amount of trust between manager and employee, then most likely the risk is very small.

We wish it could be that way. Be nice to those who have played by the rules. Hold firm, even be harsh with those who bent and twisted the rules. At one time a lot of businesses played the game that way. But today we live in the world of non-discrimination. If a pattern can be extracted from the stations employment records that shows that White employees were usually allowed to say good-bye, but a lot of Black employees were not... you have trouble on your hands.

Most employers will not provide a reference in which they evaluate the attitude and performance of a past worker. If you are going to let employees you trust say their farewell and deny that opportunity to employees who scare you, how do you explain yourself when the EEOC comes knocking? "Sir, I can't tell you why, but I had a feeling THIS employee might go bonkers and say nasty things so we denied his request to say good-bye." And you came to this conclusion....how?

 

[LKellerIII]

Every situation is different, and every manager has every right to handle it the way he/she deems appropriate. If the talent is leaving on good terms, and there is a high amount of trust between manager and employee, then most likely the risk is very small.

We wish it could be that way. Be nice to those who have played by the rules. Hold firm, even be harsh with those who bent and twisted the rules. At one time a lot of businesses played the game that way. But today we live in the world of non-discrimination. If a pattern can be extracted from the stations employment records that shows that White employees were usually allowed to say good-bye, but a lot of Black employees were not... you have trouble on your hands.

Most employers will not provide a reference in which they evaluate the attitude and performance of a past worker. If you are going to let employees you trust say their farewell and deny that opportunity to employees who scare you, how do you explain yourself when the EEOC comes knocking? "Sir, I can't tell you why, but I had a feeling THIS employee might go bonkers and say nasty things so we denied his request to say good-bye." And you came to this conclusion....how?

It's doubtful this kind of thing would come to the EEOc's attention or be pursued. And the answer is to have a consistent management policy - everybody says goodbye, nobody says goodbye, or probably the least risky - everybody gets to voice-track their last show with the goodbye.

 

[Paul_Warren]

The risks of FCC violations has never been as big a deal as the concern that an incident during a goodbye show would look to management like bad judgment on the PD's part. In reality, a jock who gave himself a "viking funeral" might generate valuable buzz. Obviously many of us found those goodbye shows memorable. At the time, we might even have been glued to the radio to hear what came next.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

It's doubtful this kind of thing would come to the EEOc's attention or be pursued.

For the typical family owned station I think you are right on the money.

But if you are one of the really big groups including Clear Channel and Cumulus, and some not quite so large, your pockets begin to look pretty deep to a Trial Lawyer who has been approached by an ex-employee who feels that he/she was not treated as nicely on the way out the door as some other employees were.

My "Prize Pig" examples would be the grief Wal-mart and Cracker Barrel have experienced in recent years over hiring practices, pay practices, etc. You don't see the mom-and-pop IGA store or Ben Franklin going through that pickle slicer. (Are there Ben Franklin five-and-dime stores any more?)