Radio Survivor

A radio station that staged a prank call to a New York woman claiming that her husband had been badly hurt in a motorcycle accident, then died in a hospital, has received a proposed fine of $16,000 from the Federal Communications Commission.

Here’s an excerpt from the August 2007 exchange:

“Mr. Ithier: Juliana, oh, oh I’m so sorry he just died right now.
Call Recipient: (crying)
Mr. Ithier: I will, Juliana I want to ask you something. Just two or three questions
please. I can’t hear you.
Call Recipient: What?
Mr. Ithier: So this is for when you come here you don’t have to ask too many
questions when you identify him.
Call Recipient: No, no, I’m going over there right now.”

“Although we exercise discretion in this instance in not imposing a higher forfeiture, we warn the Licensee that future violations of this nature may result in harsher enforcement action, including license revocation proceedings,” the FCC told station WSKQ-FM in New York City (“La Mega 97.9″) on Friday.

As far as I’m concerned, the FCC should revoke WSKQ’s license now.  People have heart attacks on hearing news like this. What if she  had been on a mobile phone and had a car accident?

But WSKQ got dinged on a technicality, allegedly violating “the telephone broadcast rule.”  Section 73.1206 of the agency’s rules stipulate that, “before broadcasting or recording a telephone conversation for later broadcast, a licensee must inform any party to the call of its intention to broadcast the conversation.”

It gets even weirder:  the third party vendor (“Rubin Ithier”) who pulled this stunt in August of 2007 for the Spanish Broadcasting System owned station apparently did this at the husband’s request. No comment on that aspect of the story. The prank was broadcast on WSKQ twice, according to the FCC. Here’s a full transcript of the exchange.

Mr. Ithier: Can I speak with Ms. Juliana please?
Call Recipient: Who is this?
Mr. Ithier: The Doctor Raymond Martinez, I’m just calling from [bleeped out]
Hospital
Call Recipient: Aha? Yes Juliana
Mr. Ithier: Do you know anybody with the name Luis, Luis Miguel?
Call Recipient: Yes
* * * * * (more…)

I apologize to anyone who was offended by my phone call to Ed Stolz.

The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco has passed a resolution urging radio station owner Ed Stolz to “rehire the talented staff” of Energy 92.7, a station that “was adored and appreciated by so many fans throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area.”

Stolz should “reconsider his choice to abandon the successful format,” the Supes resolved.

As we’ve reported, KNGY’s Gay oriented dance music format disappeared from the airwaves early last week following the sale of the station to Stolz. Radio Survivor readers know that I called Mr. Stolz the other day just to get his reaction to all this, and he was not happy to hear from me, to put it mildly. But he did make what I thought was a reasonable point, that the previous station owner had abandoned the format, not him.

Pressure campaigns

Nonetheless, Fox News camp follower Brian Maloney has accused me of being part of a “pressure campaign” against Stolz, because I had the nerve to call him on the contact number that he or his staff gave to the Federal Communications Commission, and which is part of his public file. Plus I started “peppering” him with “questions about the operation.” Eeek! (more…)