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Greenville Radio-The "Big Joke"

T

ThisOldMan

Guest
Good grief....the morning show on WBAD is awful!! There's better announcers on High School stations. All of "Big Jokes" commercials sound the same and are distorted. Today he butchered(pardon the pun) an ad for Stop N Shop in Leland by pronouncing Vienna Sausages as Vy-ee-nah Sausages. A couple of weeks ago he clipped the ending of a Commodores song and announced that the next song..."Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson was "I'm Bad".

Old and clueless....if I wanted that...I'd be waiting for Larry King to come back to radio!
 
Never heard him or the station, but I will tell you this....had he pronounced it correctly, his listeners?
would not have known what he was talking about! (born in the Delta) JBI
 
I'm from the Alabama Gulf Coast, lived in Jackson for 11 years ... the vienna pronunciation is correct based on my experience. We ain't talkin' about the capital of Austria here...
 
Yes but ....! What's that they say about the "Kings English". I hear ya and know what you are talking about but could this not be a "learning curve" for those that listen? The new station in Indianola will give them a headache they will not soon forget and all could have been corrected with a little professionalism. Just sayin!
 
J Alex....here's the correct pronunciation according to Mirriam-Webster.


Vi·en·na sausage
noun \vē-ˈe-nə-\

Definition of VIENNA SAUSAGE
: a short slender frankfurter

I've lived in many places across the country and have never heard it pronounced any other way. Let's not make excuses for lack of professionalism!
 
Vyeenah sausages were what we found in the little cans in southeast Arkansas back in the 70s and 80s too.... on small "hometown" stations in the rural South, you are likely to hear all kinds of things "mispronounced". In everyday conversation, you will hear things pronounced wrong. I saw a Facebook post where someone had exercised and announced that her legs were "soar" ... roll with it dude. If it bothers you that much, then you're gonna have to move somewhere else. It's not likely to change.

And, yeah, if the announcer had pronounced Vienna like the Austrian city, nobody would have known what he was talking about. Or they would have called him up and asked him where he is from...
 
Gentlemen....You insist on focusing on one aspect of what makes this a bad morning show....how he pronounces one item. My post stated that there's more to it than that. There's the mistaking the names of the songs...poor production...etc.

Takes my advice and listen to his morning show on 94.3 FM in Greenville. It's awful! He's a dinosaur, yet he struts around Greenville like he's the greatest thing going. This is 2012....not 1965!!!
 
One of the biggest problems with small market radio is leadership. In most cases the guy or girl that become the Program Director has no clue what a real professional radio station shounds like. Likewise most small market General Managers have no programming experience and some no real sales experience. Blow me out of the water on this but you know it is true. Professionalism will always win!
 
My guess is that in the case of WBAD, he is the Program Director. The problem lies in the fact that because his style worked well in the past,he's convinced that it still works today. Times change...people's tastes change. If not, we'd all still be watching Captain Video on TV.
 
Ya'll are making me hungry.
 
Then you should know what constitutes bad radio. One of the most quirky radio shows I ever heard was in the mid 60's on WWVA-AM in Wheeling, West Virginia. The overnight announcer was Lee Moore and he did all of his spots live and sold everything from airplanes to bibles. However, he was professional and you could listen to him without wanting to throw something at the radio.

In the case of WBAD, it's not a bad station, it's the morning guy who is awful. I happened to be listening on my way home tonight and he did an ad for a small car lot in Greenville. His part of the ad was so distorted that he sounded like one of the adults in the Peanuts specials on TV. I don't care how much you know about being professional and understanding small market radio....that's just not right.
 
I think management needs to step in and make some alterations. WIBG is either on the air or going to be on the air and they will be highly professional. It all comes down to who is listening to the radio station and who is keeping track of what the hell is going on the air. In the case of the morning man's part of the spot being distorted there are lots of wrongs here: A) he cut it hot and never listened to it for quality, B) the person who cut the remainder of the spot and put it together never listened to the final product, and C) nobody in management either cares or listens to the radio station. WBAD has been the only ballgame in town for many years with litte to no competition and have basically held the advertising community hostage! What's that old saying "there's a new sheriff in town"!
 
Here's another new one from "The Big Joke". He's on a commercial on his station that promotes an upcoming event and he announces the time of the event as being "10AM...in the morning...!!!" Is there also a 10AM in the evening?

Also....why does he always refer to a town as being in Mississippi. We're not stupid....We know what State we're in! Maybe it's because he's such a dinosaur that he has to remind himself where he is.
 
ThisOldMan said:
Here's another new one from "The Big Joke". He's on a commercial on his station that promotes an upcoming event and he announces the time of the event as being "10AM...in the morning...!!!" Is there also a 10AM in the evening?

Also....why does he always refer to a town as being in Mississippi. We're not stupid....We know what State we're in! Maybe it's because he's such a dinosaur that he has to remind himself where he is.
Click to expand...

That "10 am in the morning" thing is a major pet peeve of mine. Believe me, it isn't just this one guy, it's all over the teeveenewz; it's some sort of crutch or filler, I guess. But I hear it *all* the time on morning radio news, on local TV news and even NPR.
 
I guess some of the comments on this board have upset "The Big Joke"! He ended his radio show Friday practically crying over "people playing games" with him. What has been said here that's not true? Instead, he should hold his head up and prove us wrong by pronouncing words and phrases correctly, remembering the right artist and title of the song being played, and, most importantly, show some pride in his work by making sure his commercials are clear and understandable. Is the only reason that business owners in Greenville do business with him is because they are convinced he's the only game in town? Stupid reason...as there are better sounding radio stations in the area, including WNLA-FM...now WIBT.

Hey "Joke"! Here's another thing for you and your fellow djs on WBAD. Saying "on today", "on tomorrow" or "on yesterday" is not proper English. Read on....(as provided by several sources)

Is it proper grammar to say "on yesterday", "on today", "on tomorrow"...?

For the past couple years, I have been hearing people in the business world say things like: "I will meet with you on tomorrow.", or "I finished that project on yesterday.", or "I will email the directions to the party on today."

When did this become proper grammar? For me, it has become an annoying pet peeve!

No it is not proper grammer. The "on" needs to be removed. Making it, "I will meet with you tomorrow", "I finished that project yesterday" or "I will email the direction to the party today".[/i]
 
I hear you here gang. Things like this are hard to hear but it is true and there is a need for these guys to hear it. I still say that Bill and Stanley need to either get some professional help or hire somebody to run the station and bring it up to speed. No need for a really good radio station to sound this bad and to continue to flounder in professionalism. The revenues are there and more often that over shadows everything else. If the money is there everything must be alreight, big mistake guys! WIBT will be up to 50,000 watts soon and I can tell you they will be a first class readio station. The question is, will the listeners in the Delta appreciate it?
 
Being a former WBAD announcer for four years, I do understand what you are saying. WBAD has a great potential to be a great station. I don't have anything against the Big Jock, but you guys are very spot on in where all his flaws are. If there is a word that is hard to pronounce, he would try to say it and literally butcher the hell out of it. There were times that I had to sometimes correct him. To be honest with you all, his show was almost too painful to listen. I've worked afternoon drive at WBAD (2004-2008) and have enjoyed every day of it. Don't get me wrong, but I had better reception as well as articulation to the Delta than Jock er...Big Joke will ever have. I think that after you have been on the air nearly 40 years, I am sure that he do need to hang the microphone up, retire and let someone step it up and give it a boost. After being in radio for over 28 years, I wouldn't mind re-tooling morning drive.....that is if Bill and Stanley will let me take a stab at it. And during those 4 years I was there, I really programmed the station (you might say that I was kind of a "ghost programmer" behind the scenes). Jock only uses that title as, what you say, the biggest thing there.

Now if WBAD would let me voice-track middays there, it would go off really good than that tired and true, but painfully sounding morning show. But the owners are too cheap to even consider that idea. They said that they would consider it, but we will see.
 
I don't think a change is ever going to happen until he retires or new ownership comes in. Bill and Stanley are representations of the problems with this business. They are left-overs of station owners who cared little about how the station sounded and were happy if they made $1 more than they made the previous year. That opened the door for the Clear Channel's and other big groups to come in in the mid 90's and buy up all these stations and care little about keeping it local.
 
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