Morning Show Stunt Gone Awry

[itburnswhenipee]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - (AP) A radio station fired 10 employees, including its three morning disc jockeys, after a woman died following an on-air water-drinking contest last week.

The hosts of KDND-FM's "Morning Rave" were fired Tuesday, a day after the station said it was suspending the show and investigating the death of Jennifer Lea Strange. [EDIT]
***

When I was hosting my morning show a few years back, I called the local McDonalds and told the manager I was a state police detective looking for an escaped murderer who was an Hispanic male with long, braided hair. Then, my co-host (an Hispanic male with long, braided hair) drove up to the McDonalds takeout window and started making crazy comments. This went pretty well, until the manager found out it was a stunt from our station, called our station account executive (who handled the McDonalds account) who told our General Manager who, in turn, had an angry meeting with me.

What is your worst radio-stunt-gone-awry on your morning show or station?

-ItBurnsWhenIPee-



[EDIT-post truncated because originating material is copyprotected. Unauthorized use of copyrighted content is in violation of Radio-Info's TOS.] Please include the source's url.

 

[romer979fm]

What is your worst radio-stunt-gone-awry on your morning show or station?

ask Steve McCoy how painting his own billboard in Nashville went...

 

[mchatham103]

I was doing mornings on a temporary basis in Jackson, Mississippi during our morning show search back in early 2003. I was a candidate to get the job permanently and was getting votes of confidence that I may in fact get the gig. So for April Fool's Day, my female co-host and I decided to do a prank and devote the morning to telling the listeners that we had just found out we were going to have a baby together and that we were trying to decide whether or not to get married. We started getting all kinds of congratulatory calls and then got a call from a woman in tears whose sister could not have children, and she proceeded to tell us how blessed we were. At that point, I started feeling like total crap (as did she) and we decided to reveal the April Fools gag. It's funny how many of these congratulatory listeners called us back and told us that they knew it was a joke and that we were pulling their leg.

Long story short, it did tick off a few people, one of whom was a bigwig in one of the local cell phone providers that had a regional office in town. It angered our GM to no end and she completely went off on my co-host, yet never said a word to me. A week later, my PD (who had NO desire to do mornings at that time) was given a "suggestion" by management to move himself to mornings permanently and put me back on middays. I realized quickly that the joke definitely played a factor in me not going to mornings permanently, but all was good. I was promoted to music director and afternoon drive about three weeks later.

Oops. ;D

MC

 

[traficstud]

Our morning show on Long Island told people on April Fools Day that the county was going to put parking meters on ALL streets- including residential. The calls were coming in left and right complaining, and the county offices were getting tons of calls. The county executive, who WAS a big listener, called asking us to stop immediately. He was not too pleased!

 

[RTibbs]

I remember this one morning show here once was working on this stunt in the post-Janet Jackson world where they werre going to have a porn star talky dirty and then play it over the air backwards. They called it backwards porn. Unfortunately while recording the bit a technical glitch caused the porn to go out live. They lost their jobs. Too bad they were pretty funny. They have yet to be replaced with anything better.

One of their replacements also had a stunt go awry. Their on-going feud with their sister hispanic station spilled out onto the air when one decided to play a tape of the two hispanic morning show members having a conversation in the station's bathroom stalls. This led to racial discrimination complaints and them losing their jobs. They weren't that funny anyway so all the better. Unfortunately though their station ended up flipping a month later and almost everyone lost their jobs.

 

[bgwilde1]

Not really a 'stunt', but it went awry......

Years ago, I had been on the job a month as the promo director in White Plains, NY. Our morning guy had just started, and we were looking for a way to introduce him to the market. Enter one of the 1-800 order-a-bed places and the local train station.

The engineer and I started setting up at the train station, near the main entrance, at 4am. The bed folks had come and delivered a nice king-sized bed, and all looked to be shaping up for our breakfast in bed with the new morning guy remote.

I had to go get the doughnuts and coffee we were to pass out, about four blocks away, so I left the engineer to finish setting up.

While I was gone, the police stopped and let off a drunk, and told him to take the train to Elmsford.

A bit of a digression, but needed to explain the story. Elmsford, NY, has no train station. One cannot ride the train to Elmsford, as it is west of White Plains and the three major Metro-North lines run north-south. there are no east-west lines.

Anyway, the drunk flopped down onto the bed, and stayed there. As the engineer was close to finishing the setup, he went over and asked the guy to move. He mumbled something, and rolled over away from him on the bed.

I was still at the doughnut shop, and away from the 2-way radio in the van...

The engineer finished the setup, and went to ask the guy to move again, and gently shook him.

The drunk comes flying up off of the bed, pushes the engineer backwards into the remote table. His shoulder is dislocated and a lot of equipment is smashed beyond repair, and the drunk wails away on him. To his credit, the engineer does defend himself long enough until the morning guy arrives, grabs and holds the guy until the cops come.

I get back into the van, got on the 2-way, and told them I was heading back to the train station. The folks at the studio said the engineer had been in a fight, I needed to get back fast. Being new, and having a few tricks played on me, I thought this was another one and laughed it off until I got back just in time to see the engineer being packed into the back of an ambulance.

Several station folks came out to help me clean up (it was only a 10 minute drive to get there), and I had to tie that bed down to the top of the van and drive back to the radio ranch slowly with it.

The engineer's shoulder healed, and he had a lawsuit against the city.

This really started a firestorm between a few government folks-

- Metro North Railroad has their own police. Policy says that a person in police custody who is to ride their train must be accompanied by Metro North officers. No such arrangement to involve them was made in this incident.

- The guy was intoxicated enough to already be picked up by the police, but never made it to the drunk tank at the jail.

- The Station Manager for the train station saw some of what was going on, but never unlocked the front door to come out and see all of the fun.

After all of that fun, we finally did the morning show live from that bed at the train station a few weeks later!

Welome to New York.....

 

[icstephen]

Back when I was in High school (and living in Canton, Ohio) the local rock station WRQK and DJ Rick Elliott where doing all kinds of crazy April fools stunts but the one that got them was they where telling everyone that Van Hallen was giving a free unscheduled concert at the McKinley Monument downtown and so many people showed up that the police called and told them they would be arrested if they did not tell everyone it was a joke.

Radio like that is what got me into radio….don’t know weather to love them or hate them :-\

 

[itburnswhenipee]

One day our radio station was doing a remote for a cellphone store, and deejay "Shane" was hosting the remote. About 30 minutes into the remote, a police squad car pulls up, several police officers get out, and talk to Shane momentarily. After confirming his real (legal) name, the officers arrest Shane, lead him away in handcuffs in front of the cellphone store manager and staff. Turns out that Shane was wanted on charges of receiving stolen property.

When I got back to the radio station, our account executive for the cellphone store, Tom, was literally crying.