Obviously it should be avoided, but 3 beers just under a six pack should be ok.
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drinking before an airshift
- Thread starter rockradiopurist
- Start date
Airshaft??? What's the point of this thread? I've known many guys who drank DURING an airshift. One overnight guy passed out with a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps in his hand. The morning news guy found him slumped over the console. After he was fired, I think his next gig was in some tiny Alabama town. Downward spiral...😑
I know of a former, small town owner of an AM station in Arizona who had a notoriously bad cocaine and alcohol habit. Paychecks would always bounce.
Back when I first started in commercial radio as a board-op/janitor/gofer/night jock/PM drive time producer, the station I worked for (small Mid-Atlantic college town) got a ton of trade business…mostly, restaurants. What this meant was basically the entire staff would eat out for lunch at a different establishment 1-3x a week gratis
Being 18 (well after the drinking age got moved to 21 in my state), I’d take any opportunity to come into the station a bit early, enjoy a couple big draft beers with the crew while eating free lunch, go into a food/drink coma afterwards at my desk, and be right as rain when I clocked in at 2-4pm.
I wouldn’t be drinking on the air, but one of our sales guys would drink his fill during lunch then go out on sales calls afterwards. You can guess what salesman got the restaurant trades.
All in all, a minor perk making up for working at state minimum wage full-time with no benefits!
Being 18 (well after the drinking age got moved to 21 in my state), I’d take any opportunity to come into the station a bit early, enjoy a couple big draft beers with the crew while eating free lunch, go into a food/drink coma afterwards at my desk, and be right as rain when I clocked in at 2-4pm.
I wouldn’t be drinking on the air, but one of our sales guys would drink his fill during lunch then go out on sales calls afterwards. You can guess what salesman got the restaurant trades.
All in all, a minor perk making up for working at state minimum wage full-time with no benefits!
Two incidents, one mine, one at a competitor's station where the GM was a good friend.
At Mooney's (WMAK, WKGN, WERC) WUNO, we had the transmitters in a room across from the studios. One afternoon, the main rig acted up and we went onto the AUX rig. My Chief Engineer and I went to work on the main, which was an older Gates that did not even have solid state rectifiers.
As we worked, we had defeated the safety switches on the transmitter panels, so everything was open. Both of us came around from the back of the rig to see the PM drive guy was standing in front of the transmitter and teetering back and forth, obviously three sheets to the wind. Here he was, in front of two pairs of unprotected 8008's along with the power supply and high voltage wiring, waving like a flag in a breeze. One of us jumped to grab him and push him away while the other hit the "plate off" on the transmitter. A crispy critter was avoided... after which I fired him.
At Bob Hope's WBMJ, the manager noted that his PM jock sounded "looser and looser" as his shift went on. They watched him carefully, and he never carried anything into the studio, so they were confused.
One day, the men's room toilet required repair. The plumber advised the manager that he had found a bottle of rum in the toilet tank. My friend decided to put a tiny mark on the bottle to show its content. After the guy went on the air, he went and checked the bottle. Every hour or so, it decline about the equivalent of a good shot.
The next day, after the guy's shift began, my friend removed the bottle. The DJ went to the bathroom, and almost immediately came out and left, never to return.
I have heard a LOT of stories, but have little experience with people who could not hold their alcohol. I can say that I've had times when I had a couple of drinks with lunch before an afternoon drive shift, but I was always careful to not over do things. At another time, I worked morning radio and often met up for dinner and drinks with a friend, one of the local news anchors, after he finished the 6 o'clock TV news. We would have a bite and a brew or two or more. Often he bought and consumed a pitcher. An hour later I'd go home to sleep. He'd go back to the TV station to write and air the 10pm News. Bad or good, drinks were at one time part of the culture. I have never seen behavior quite like what was depicted on "Mad Men". But I've seen events that leaned more toward Don Draper than you might expect. It was what it was in its time. Today sensitivities are different, management is paranoid about everything, including potential lawsuits so I doubt there are more than a very few people working tipsy. Maybe that's why there is so little excitement on the air. Who knows?
I remember hearing this show live. It was her final shift and she knew that she'd been dropped and that day was her last program, which is never a great idea. She went straight from a local bar to the radio station:
www.theguardian.com
The audio is here:
Paula White: the BBC presenter who went on air 'drunk'
What we know about BBC Stoke presenter who went on air after a few drinks - and sounded it
The audio is here:
I remember hearing this show live. It was her final shift and she knew that she'd been dropped and that day was her last program, which is never a great idea. She went straight from a local bar to the radio station:
Paula White: the BBC presenter who went on air 'drunk'
What we know about BBC Stoke presenter who went on air after a few drinks - and sounded it
The audio is here:
And don’t forget Darian O’Toole’s last show on the short-lived FreeFM in SF. She was quite sauced on a particular midday shift and was promptly served her walking papers…and passed away a year or so later in a likely “death by misadventure” situation. Do believe the clips from that fateful day are still up on YouTube
Luckily, I don’t believe Paula White suffered the same consequences career (or life) wise
The only time I ever drank before an airshift was when I thought I'd already done my show for the day.
Story:
I'm the 18-year-old morning kid/Music Director at KSLY in San Luis Obispo. Off the air at 10 a.m.
The PD is usually the midday jock, but he and I are going to lunch with a promotion guy from Columbia Records, so he swaps shifts just that day with the afternoon drive jock.
Off we go to a place then called Sebastian's, on the San Luis Obispo Mission Plaza (for the past ten years, it's been Luna Red).
Promo guy orders a pitcher of margaritas, nobody asks me for ID (drinking age was/is 21) and I'm not driving so, hey...I have two, maybe three with lunch. And I've been up since 4:00 a.m., but there's a place in the station where you can grab a nap if need be, and that's my plan until the PD turns to me in the car and says:
"I'm wasted. I'm gonna lie down. You do the first hour of Steve's shift, okay?"
He woke up for the final 30 minutes.
Story:
I'm the 18-year-old morning kid/Music Director at KSLY in San Luis Obispo. Off the air at 10 a.m.
The PD is usually the midday jock, but he and I are going to lunch with a promotion guy from Columbia Records, so he swaps shifts just that day with the afternoon drive jock.
Off we go to a place then called Sebastian's, on the San Luis Obispo Mission Plaza (for the past ten years, it's been Luna Red).
Promo guy orders a pitcher of margaritas, nobody asks me for ID (drinking age was/is 21) and I'm not driving so, hey...I have two, maybe three with lunch. And I've been up since 4:00 a.m., but there's a place in the station where you can grab a nap if need be, and that's my plan until the PD turns to me in the car and says:
"I'm wasted. I'm gonna lie down. You do the first hour of Steve's shift, okay?"
He woke up for the final 30 minutes.
I never heard this live but recordings were circulating at one point online. In fact the whole shift was recorded. This was at KQUE FM in Houston.
It seems, according to the man's sister, he did not drink but when he got sick, say with the flu, he would seem to be drunk with slurred speech and delayed reaction times. The guy had done a shift earlier in the day and was called in to do overnights.
As the early hours went on it seems the man slurred more words, at a few points left the microphone on and once or twice sang with the record. By about 3 am, he forgot to put a song in program and the microphone is on as you hear him in the studio. He did about a 1 minute accolade for a England Dan song. In other words, as the hours rolled by the on air presentation got worse and worse. He even called a friend and put him on the air by accident, even lowering the volume of the song playing with both sides of the conversation airing. He said he felt really bad.
Finally about 5:20am he throws up on the air and in the call to the same friend describes how it's 'everywhere' (that also aired over the song) and he has to clean it up before his replacement gets there.
It seems after he throws up, he seems to lose the slurring of speech and sounds pretty spot on. If you've even been ill and finally puke, you know you usually feel better.
The guy was fired. Nobody can say for sure if he was drunk or as his sister said, sounded and acted drunk when really sick. It seems the guy died early in life.
It seems, according to the man's sister, he did not drink but when he got sick, say with the flu, he would seem to be drunk with slurred speech and delayed reaction times. The guy had done a shift earlier in the day and was called in to do overnights.
As the early hours went on it seems the man slurred more words, at a few points left the microphone on and once or twice sang with the record. By about 3 am, he forgot to put a song in program and the microphone is on as you hear him in the studio. He did about a 1 minute accolade for a England Dan song. In other words, as the hours rolled by the on air presentation got worse and worse. He even called a friend and put him on the air by accident, even lowering the volume of the song playing with both sides of the conversation airing. He said he felt really bad.
Finally about 5:20am he throws up on the air and in the call to the same friend describes how it's 'everywhere' (that also aired over the song) and he has to clean it up before his replacement gets there.
It seems after he throws up, he seems to lose the slurring of speech and sounds pretty spot on. If you've even been ill and finally puke, you know you usually feel better.
The guy was fired. Nobody can say for sure if he was drunk or as his sister said, sounded and acted drunk when really sick. It seems the guy died early in life.
FTV Live routinely reports on TV anchors and reporters acting or seeming drunk on-air. The most recent was last week in Washington, DC.
Personally, I did a handful of times, usually at company functions that occurred before my shift or during remotes at bars where the owner plied the station's staff with alcohol. I otherwise took my job fairly seriously. I can't remember ever having worked at a station that had a strict no-alcohol policy (at least outside of driving company vehicles) though.
The real alcohol stories, however, are the ones that occurred off-air. Station parties frequently got wild and tended to go out of control quickly. As this is a family board, I won't go into detail, but I have seen things at station parties that would make Heidi Fleiss blush.
Personally, I did a handful of times, usually at company functions that occurred before my shift or during remotes at bars where the owner plied the station's staff with alcohol. I otherwise took my job fairly seriously. I can't remember ever having worked at a station that had a strict no-alcohol policy (at least outside of driving company vehicles) though.
The real alcohol stories, however, are the ones that occurred off-air. Station parties frequently got wild and tended to go out of control quickly. As this is a family board, I won't go into detail, but I have seen things at station parties that would make Heidi Fleiss blush.
Im surprised no ones mentioned the one yet that came to my mind... Frankie Blue drunk on WNEW 102.7 20 years ago.. i think he had gone to a party and ended up having to cover on air.
This story is everywhere! The latest TV anchor to be intoxicated on air, and removed from the set. The fact that this is a WNBC New York anchor has made it even more high profile.
www.yahoo.com
NBC anchor Leon Harris sparks health concerns after appearing to struggle through broadcast
Viewers reported that the network abruptly switched the broadcast to the weather forecast
Correction: WRC-TV Washington anchor. I don't think Harris has ever worked in New York, though he previously worked for CNN.This story is everywhere! The latest TV anchor to be intoxicated on air, and removed from the set. The fact that this is a WNBC New York anchor has made it even more high profile.
NBC anchor Leon Harris sparks health concerns after appearing to struggle through broadcast
Viewers reported that the network abruptly switched the broadcast to the weather forecast
The official story with these famous Orson Welles outtakes is that he wasn't actually drunk, but rather had taken a sleeping pill:
Director says Orson Welles not drunk during infamous wine commercial
Veteran British producer and director Peter Shillingford wants tp clear the air about the "drunken" TV commercial with Orson Welles.
www.wellesnet.com
Thanks for the correction. Just a brief off the topic remark: It's interesting the number of NBC O&O's that are on channel 4, for ABC it's channel 7. Anyways, back to the topic of drinking before going on the air...Correction: WRC-TV Washington anchor. I don't think Harris has ever worked in New York, though he previously worked for CNN.
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