The Stupdiest Listener Calls I've Ever Gotten

[DonReelSteal]

I worked at a daytimer once.. (i think we all have)

Anyways, one night.. around 10pm after we had been off the air for the day since about 8pm or so, I got a phone and answered it. It was some lady wanting the phone number, to another radio station!She ACTUALLY said, "Well, aren't ALL radio stations conencted together?"

Another call I got..... again, after we had signed off (I often stayed late to do production).. I got a phone call from a lady asking me to help her identify a song. When we finally figured out what genre of music it was, I was still baffled. When I asked her where she was hearing it, "She said nit's on the 93.7 FM right now!"

Another late night, well after sign off I got another phone call. This lady was asking for a song request. When I was able to determine that it was a gospel song, which we only played early mornings and sunday, I told her to call back during those times when we were on the air. Guess who called back 2 days later at the same time, asking the same g*d darn question? You guessed it! The same lady!

 

[RMarino]

Working at an oldies station in the '90s in Sarasota, FL, we were running "Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember." Someone calls the request line and asks to speak to Dick! Well geez, what could I say? "Sorry, Mr. Clark is in the john, call back later!"

 

[JeremyAndrews]

> Working at an oldies station in the '90s in Sarasota, FL, we
> were running "Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember." Someone
> calls the request line and asks to speak to Dick! Well
> geez, what could I say? "Sorry, Mr. Clark is in the john,
> call back later!"
>
This is similar. Once I got bored so I told my sister to call a station running Carson Daly's Most Requested and she did. She didn't know what to say so she asked for a song request and if Carson was there. They lady who answered said "Yeah he's here but he's being mean. He doesn't wanna talk to anyone and he's throwing stuff at me" then she said "I'll try to make him play your request on his crappy show"

I laughed the whole night.<P ID="signature">______________

AIM: JeremyA1069</P>

 

[ChuckTiller]

My 1st stupid call was my 2nd day on the radio. This time, I was all by myself. The week before, the PD was there to oversee how I was handling things. It was 1972 at my 1st job in radio at 920 KTLW, Texas City, about 50 miles south of Houston. It had a great signal into Houston. My shift on Sundays was 6AM til 1PM. It was public service and church programming til Noon. I couldn't wait for that one hour of country music. It was all I had, but I took it.

I was feeling pretty good, although still nervous. About 12:20, I get a call from a very irate listener demanding to know, "Where is 'Face The Nation'?" Her voice was terse as I looked over the program log. Was there a mistake? Was there something I missed? She continued her verbal onslaught, as I scrambled to find an answer for her. My mind begin to clear and I asked her, "M'am, isn't "Face The Nation," on Channel 11 (KHOU-TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston.)
Still angry shes blurted a very hard, "YES!" I said, "But, m'am. This is the radio station, why did you call me, why not call Channel 11?" She quickly responded, "Its a long distant phone call to Houston, so I'm calling you and I expect you to do something about it, right now." I became flustered. I didn't know how much time was left on the 45 that was going around and around. I told her I couldn't help and hung up. I grabbed another 45 and cued it up. I thought to myself, "well thats over. I won't have to deal with something like that again."

Yeah, sure thing. It had only just begun.

 

[JohnnyMorganWXJX]

Does a message left for me as station manager count?

Local elderly busybody, and relative of our college town's "premier" ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer, calls with a complaint about music featured on WXJX (our automated mix).

She took offense and threatened FCC action (of course) because of some Jay-Z song with some bad lyrics (ok, got me there).

Then she says, "And I heard this other song that said 'God only knows how I feel about you'. I don't think that's appropriate, and if you don't do something about this, I don't know, you're probably regulated by the FCC, they'll be getting a call as well as the newspapers."

I racked my brain for about an hour trying to think of what that song lyric was from--and I wasn't aided in the fact that I had the college president at bay, breathing down my neck to know what the message was about (he apparently got a similar call). Up and down the playlist I went in my head, wondering where those damn lyrics came from.

Finally, it came to me....

"God Only Knows"---the Beach Boys. (Her lyric was wrong, but I got the drift.) You know, the same "God Only Knows" that's been an oldies staple for years; the same song that garners respect and admiration from fellow musicians (Paul McCartney was directly inspired by that song to write "Penny Lane") and music critics, even those classically attuned; the song that is considered the crowning achievement of 'Pet Sounds'.

I ignored her message and never called her back. And got rid of Jay-Z.

But for a moment I seriously contemplated programming Gregorian chants performed by mimes in drive-time.

 

[jjjohnson]

I had a call from a fellow demanding to know why cartoons had replaced his "church service." I politely explained that he was calling the radio station and not a certain local TV station and that I had no control over what the TV station was airing. Then it dawned on me, this was Saturday morning! When I told the fellow what day it was, he said..."Oh," and hung up.

 

[zman]

I had a lady call last week and ask for the phone number of one of our competitors. She even said, "I can't get any other radio station to help me but I was wondering if you could give me the number for the river." I simply asked her, "would you call WAl-MART and ask for the number for Target," she said of course not. I then said they why would you call a radio station and ask fo rthe numberr of a competitor. I got a long pause in responce and then she finally said I see, never mind. Another dumb call I recieve every week durring a NASCAR race is someone will call and ask to request a song. Now, you can hear the race in the back ground so you know they are lisetning. When I tell them we are doing a race and cannot take a request right now they seem surprised. I had one person ask if I could stop the race to play their song. I simply told them no and I would try to get it on after words. Also we get calls every sunday from people wanting to talk to Rick Dees. They sound surprised when I tell them the show is on a cd amd Rocl os mpt actually in the studio. This weekend was espeically annoying when Hiller Duff was on the show. The phone rang off the hook with teenage girls wanting to talk to her. When we used to carry Carson Daily's most requested we would get the occasional person droppoing by the station wanting to talk to whoever he was interviewing. They would have a look of shock when I told them the show came down over a satelite feed at three that afternoon, we aired the show at eight pm. A friend of mine who worked at a station in Ottawa illinois (WCMY) gets calls from people asking why the cable is out. That station is carried on the Ottawa cable system and people think the station owns the cable company. I'm sure I can think of more later but those are the ones that come to mind.

 

[OldAkronite]

I've answered request calls looking to talk to Wolfman Jack.

I've answered calls from listeners in distant cities who thought their favorite talk show was being jammed somehow.

I've answered calls from listeners upset that the local TV station has pre-empted a basketball game for breaking news.

The list goes on.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>

 

[TheViking]

> I've answered request calls looking to talk to Wolfman Jack.
>
>
> I've answered calls from listeners in distant cities who
> thought their favorite talk show was being jammed somehow.
>
> I've answered calls from listeners upset that the local TV
> station has pre-empted a basketball game for breaking news.
>
> The list goes on.
>
> -OA
>

Not so much a call but a sincere question asked at a remote on a Saturday at a drugstore in rural Bradford, Vermont... "Is Imus gonna be here today?"

 

[Ed_Walker]

Not that anyone has suggested this - but never forget - it could
be that "stupid listener" is the one filling out the Arbitron diary...

Be nice to them. They're not stupid - but they probably have better
priorities than you and I....radio is just an afterthought....

 

[qcityguy]

"Hi, will you put me on the radio?"

"I dunno, what are you going to say?"

"You tell me, I'll do whatever you want."

"Okay, uh .... let's hear you sing God Bless America."

"Um ... I don't know that song."

"Are you kidding? You don't know God Bless America?"

"No, I never go to church."

 

[qcityguy]

"Hey, will you play a song for me?"

"What song do you want?"

"I'm not sure what it's called, it's Metallica, they're my favroite band, it's something like, uh, Infinite Sadman, something like that ..."

"Enter Sandman?"

"Yeah! Yeah, that's it! I KNEW it started with an "I".

 

[qcityguy]

I swear this really happened. I have a recording of it. And it actually lasted much much longer than this:

"Can you tell me who does a song?"

"I can try, sure."

"Who sings Mama's Got a Squeezebox?"

"Oh. Yeah, that's right."

"Who sings it?"

"Exactly."

"No really, who sings Mama's Got a Squeezebox?"

"You got it."

"But who sings it?"

"Exactly right."

" ............. are you gonna tell me or not?"

"I just told you!"

"Please tell me!"

"What song again?"

"Who ... sings ... Mama's Got a Squeezebox?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right."

"Please! Tell me!"

"Have you ever heard of Abbott and Costello?"

" .... is that who sings it?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, thanks."

--------------------
p.s. About 3 years later, I swear, I got a call asking "Who sings Pinball Wizard," and did the whole thing over again.

 

[Robert Bass]

There’s a woman who calls and leaves three to four minute voice mail messages running off lists of songs she wants to hear. But the songs she’s naming are not a part of our format at this time.

I finally talked to her over the phone for a good 45+ minutes (even though I had more important, work related things that I should have been doing at the time), explaining that while we might evolve our format in a few years to include some of the songs she was asking for, we were staying with our current format for the time being.

This pretty much put and end to her calls for about six to eight months. Well she called again last week with yet another three-minute voice mail message consisting of non-format compatible songs she wants to hear (many of them were the same songs from previous calls which I had specifically explained to her were not currently format compatible).

R

 

[RockManAC]

> I've answered calls from listeners upset that the local TV
> station has pre-empted a basketball game for breaking news.

Ugh.. I work at a TV station.. The Chief Meteorologist and I once fielded a call from a guy who was screaming that we covered the end of an episode of the syndicated re-runs of CSI with a Severe WX cut-in and demanding that we replay the end of the show. Of course, you realize that had it been a tornado touching down (or something like that) and we weren't on the air telling him about it he would of complained about that!

-A<P ID="signature">______________

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[zman]

> "Hi, will you put me on the radio?"
>
> "I dunno, what are you going to say?"
>
> "You tell me, I'll do whatever you want."
>
> "Okay, uh .... let's hear you sing God Bless America."
>
> "Um ... I don't know that song."
>
> "Are you kidding? You don't know God Bless America?"
>
> "No, I never go to church."


"Hey when are you going to play my song"
That comment is a good way to not get your song played.
Also, people who call every few minutes with different requests. Or how about people who when they finally get throgh say something like, "I finally got through, I've been trying for almost an hour." Or those people who call the office line and tell you they can't get through on the request line because it is bussy. Or they will ask how come the request line is bussy.
>

 

[KMRichards]

> Also, people who call every few minutes with different
> requests. Or how about people who when they finally get
> throgh say something like, "I finally got through, I've been
> trying for almost an hour." Or those people who call the
> office line and tell you they can't get through on the
> request line because it is bussy. Or they will ask how come
> the request line is bussy.

Flip side: I once had an advertiser call the request line on a holiday demanding to talk to his account rep. He called the request line "because no one is answering your business office line".<P ID="signature">______________


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[Xnewsie]

Some highlights from my current station:

"What time is it?"

"Do you know how much rain we're gonna get this afternoon?"

"Why is the cable out?"

Sheesh. You'd think we're Information Central with some of the calls we get 'round here. My favorite listener encounter? How's about the times when some teenybopper calls asking the following...

"Can you help me with the name of a song?"
Me: "Sure, no problem."
"I think it goes, 'love you too much baby', or something like that..."
Me: Hold on, I'll take a look."
(a few moments later)
Me: By the way, did you hear the song on our station?"
"No, I heard it on KISS-FM a few days ago. Can you give me their phone number?"



I've never been one to follow the old PD adage that many listeners are little more than "bricks", but times like the above make me wonder.


<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by Xnewsie on 09/20/05 06:46 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[ynot2k]

My all-time most aggravating ones were the ones I got when we'd lose the signal thanks to rain storms, or one time, a tremendous snowstorm, and I'm trying to contact my engineers to get us back online, and people keep calling to say "Do you know you're off the air?"

Yes, I realize the question "why are you answering the phones during that time?" will come up, but it was an all-news station so we always had to answer the phones, and the engineers' calls would come in on the same line.

Finally, I snapped on some dumb schlub and just yelled at him, "I'm trying to get us back on the air and it would be a lot easier if idiots like you would stop calling!" Boy did he hang up quick.


At times like those, I always remember (and adapt) the wisdom of the movie "Clerks:"
"This job would be great if it wasn't for the f**king listeners."

Yes, I know they're our customers, yes, I know they fill out the books, yes, I'm nice to them in most cases, but sometimes I have to speak ill of them. It keeps me from killing the next one that calls the NEWSROOM and asks me to play Maroon Five or Nelly.

 

[KMRichards]

> My all-time most aggravating ones were the ones I got when
> we'd lose the signal thanks to rain storms, or one time, a
> tremendous snowstorm, and I'm trying to contact my engineers
> to get us back online, and people keep calling to say "Do
> you know you're off the air?"

All I could think of when reading this was the episode of WKRP where the transmitter gets blown up. When Les Nessman is told the station is off the air (he had just done a newscast, in a studio that isn't connected to a transmitter anymore), he replies "Oh, then I should lead with that on my next newscast."<P ID="signature">______________


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