Djs quitting on the air.

[DToTheJ]

Bob the Blade was one of the few holdovers for Raleigh's WRDU when they flipped from rock to country. One night toward the end of his shift he decided to give RDU a "proper sendoff" and played a Who song. I hear he's working for another station in the area, forget which.

I haven't heard of any such incidents in Atlanta, but we had something like that here in Raleigh: Legendary classic-rock DJ Bob the Blade, of WRDU, did so a few months ago, almost two months after WRDU flipped to country as "106.1 The Rooster" (Clear Channel strikes again!) When the flip first happened, all the old DJs, including The Blade, left then, but a few weeks later he returned to his old afternoon-drive slot on The Rooster, then abruptly quit near the end of his shift a week later, saying he could never be a country DJ. He has since joined another classic-rock station east of Raleigh.

Thank you for rendering my entire post useless. ;D

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

I recall Dr Johnny Fever either quit or fell asleep?

He got fired for saying "Booger!"

In all seriousness, Ron Britain "The King B" was at WJMK-FM, Chicago, an oldies station, for 15 years or so. His contract ran out and he was working without one while at the station. One Friday he said goodbye, informed listeners that he was going to "mix" things up and that he you could hear him soon. He reemerged at rival WTMX-FM in less than an hour. He completed one hour and then began his normal PM drive shift the following Monday.

 

[BossJock1947]

Like many others I have heard the "I quit this bitch" sign off. It was sad to hear someone so frustrated that she flushed her career by doing that.

She had no career making $6 an hour/No Security/No Insurance/No Respect....You can get more and then some at Burger King.

Radio is a Dead End for most especially when you work for Cumulus, CBS, and CC.

I'm surprised more DJ's don't quit on the air. 80% of DJ's get NO RESPECT from management even if you have a college degree. Sad.

 

[Ultimajock]

...then there was the time in 1986 I quit WRPX Minneapolis/St. Paul on-the-air. Station management set up their afternoon drive gal Sue Ryan to be fired; the PD pencilled her in to do a live remote, then conveniently changed the time without telling her of the change. Thus, when she showed up at the time she *was* told to, she was canned for being three hours late. Then, a few weeks later, they tried to pull the exact same thing with me, but I came in late the night before to do some production work and noticed the new time on the schedule left on the receptionist's desk in the front office. The old remote times were still posted in the control studio. As it turned out, the remote was to have been four -- moved back to two -- hours after my regular airshift; so what I did was explain at the very end of that shift what shenanigans were being pulled and quit on the air, immediately before the ID and the CNN hourly news. The PD was at the remote site, with the speakers hooked up and sending my show out to the parking lot at the grocery where it was scheduled -- and damn near needed to use a new roll of Charmin on the sidewalk when I closed that show. But I *did* send him a warning signal of sorts, as my last two records were Sheena Easton's "So Far So Good" into Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" ;-) ...

...I bumped into the receptionist at the grocery a few days later and she admitted to me that she'd left the altered schedule out on her desk on the chance that I'd come in and notice it that night. She also explained what got the station brass teed off at me -- complaints from the entourage of a certain Minnesota-based celebrity of the time called Prince. That individual's full birth name is Prince Rogers Nelson, and I had started calling him "Mister Rogers" on the air over his credit shenanigans for writing The Bangles' hit "Manic Monday" (he'd used the name "Christopher" on the record label). Apparently, some of Prince's hangers-on heard the rib and got word back to Prince himself, who had his people start calling the station to complain. That's when the PD decided to "pull a Ryan" on me...

...thanks to some equally shady book cooking, WRPX went silent a few months after that, so I would have been out of a job anyway. But I'm still here, and in WRPX's place today is heard the satellited "True Oldies" of WMIN (wonder if they play any Prince records?)...

 

[Media Mogul]

If I remember correctly, did Soupy Sales not quit on the air doing afternoons at 66 WNBC??

 

[BigTimeEngineer]

Soupy did mid-days and, as the saying goes, his contract was not renewed.

 

[Ultimajock]

If I remember correctly, did Soupy Sales not quit on the air doing afternoons at 66 WNBC??

...Howard Stern did afternoons at WNBC when Sales was on (as mentioned above, in middays). Sales announced on-air on the last day of the contract that he wanted out; I suspect what actually happened was that he wanted a network deal with NBC but couldn't come to terms. The same time slot was given to Steve Allen, who *was* given said NBC network show, for a while anyway (WMAQ Chicago ran it between Don Vogel middays and "Dr." Morton Downey Jr. afternoon drives, IIRC)...

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Soupy complained on the air about that shabby way that the station (WNBC) had treated a fellow employee, and management promptly ushered Soupy out of the studio.

The most famous on-air firing happened when WABC in New York was a top-40 station. Roby Yonge, who was doing overnights, had already been informed his contract was not being renewed. So one night, he turned WABC into a talk station and discussed with callers the rumor that Paul McCartney was dead. Program Director Rick Sklar had to come to the station in the middle of the night to remove Yonge.