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STRANGE LISTENER COMPLAINTS

Listeners can also be advertisers. That's when it gets complicated. Especially when they "mis-hear" what you say.
This may take a second, so get a cup of coffee and get comfortable.
When I was doing mornings we were blessed with big numbers and lots of listeners. A local bank sponsored our live Accuweather forecasts. Simple enough, read the sponsor intro, bring up the Wx guy, chat, read the outro and back to music. Only thing, the blowhard at the ad agency for the sponsor "mis-heard" the intro and imploded. That morning, we (the team as it were) were goofing with the word "fine". "What a fine day", "what a fine forecast", "thanks for the fine newscast". Just screwing around.... so when I intro'ed the Wx guy, I said the forecast was sponsored by the "fine" folks at XXXX National bank with 12 locations.....etc. What the ad agency jerk thought he heard was "sponsored by the five folks left at XXX National...... (they had just laid off about 20 people in a reorganization.) Of course, there was the requisite panic when the agency canceled the contract. Then there was the big meeting. Our VP/GM, sales manager, PD, bank VP, agency guy, and little ol' me. The ad guy was a real jerk, said nothing we could do to save the contract, it was done. Bank VP was also upset. Our PD did a masterful job of settling everyone down and explained our Metrotech logging system that ran 24/7. Every word spoken on the radio station was archived and time/dated. The PD then played back the 6:20, 7:20 and the offending 8:20 breaks. When the bank VP heard what really aired, he turned to the ad guy (who was now a really nice shade of white) and said, "you canceled the contract over something you thought you heard?" The bank VP asked to re-start the contract, our VP/GM took a long time to answer, but said yes, and all was well. The bank had a new ad agency the next quarter.
 
Dave said:
uppendowndadial said:
I swear this is true: I got knocked off the air during a storm in New Orleans, and a listener called to ask what happened. I told her we got knocked off the air because of the thunderstorm, and she said "Well, why don't you make an announcement about it?"
Click to expand...
Sorry, have to call BS on this one... straight out of a WKRP script :)
Click to expand...

Almost all the WKRP incidents were taken from real radio incidents. All of us have had multiple call of the "why didn't ytou say you were going off the air?" type. It is not even funny inside the building any more.
 
One other listener complaint story from a number of years back in my career.

I had the pleasure of working for a few years at a heritage AM Top 40 station, which ended its' reign playing music as an oldies station. Oh, heck. I can identify the station. It was WING-AM in Dayton, Ohio.

Our morning guy was Steve Kirk, who did mornings on the station for some 25 years before his, and the station's, "musical" retirement. Anyone who knows Steve knows that he was (and still is) a loud, brash, very uptempo person with lots of jokes, a few bad puns and, generally, one of the finest gentlemen personally I've ever known.

Anyway, I'm on the air one day and the phone rings. The lady had a complaint. She said, "Steve Kirk is coming out of my shower!" Turns out the poor gal lived in a housing development right behind our tower site which sat behind the station building. Apparently, she was so close that the AM radiated right into her house's plumbing. And, indeed...Steve Kirk (well, at least his voice) was coming out of her shower!

I couldn't resist the temptation to, jokingly, needle Kirkie for a minute. "Madam", I said. "If Steve Kirk is coming out of your shower, you don't need an engineer. You need to call a priest, because your shower is most definitely possessed!" We both got a big laugh, and I got the lady to an engineer who helped her with some solution to her shower problem. Steve, as I recall, got a big laugh out of it, too.
 
I remember going to work for an oldies station in NC in 1990 and in the first couple of days of intense listening heard this horrible song being introduced as one of my favorite oldies. I called the control room to inquire and was told by the jock that "that's what it says on the cart."

When I go back to the station, I got the cart and listened for myself - to the same horrible song! What the hell was it, and how did it get on the air.

Well, the station hadn't graduated to CD at that point and must of the music had been dubbed from vinyl. I searched for the original, put the 45 on the turntable in the music room and here was that same horrible song! I flipped it and found the right song. Apparently the labels on the 45 had been reversed at the pressing plant!

Just further proof you should never let kids work at oldies stations!
 
These stories remind my of a comment from a real good engineer friend - "if it weren't for the damn listeners - and those stupid advertisers, this would be a really great business!"
 
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