Radio Survivor

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As a regular listener to commercial radio stations, I often hear radio ads that I really wish weren’t broadcast, especially later at night. With this post I begin an ongoing series on these spots, my least favorite being the Prolixus “male thickening” product.

The radio script runs as follows:

Hey guys, does size really matter? Take it from a woman, it does. But you need to know once and for all what kind of size. What really want and what really hits the spot. All the women listening right now are either smiling or nodding their head in agreement. Now introducting [sic] Prolixus, the male widening secret the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want you know about. This ground breaking male-enhancement formula increases your thickness to an astonishing width safely and permanently. And right now, we’re giving away a helpful free tool with every order because we want to prove Prolixus works. Call . . .

As far as I’m concerned, men who actually buy this nostrum already have the thickness they’re looking for—in their head. Note that the ad never actually says the following: “Prolixus will expand the physical diameter of your penis.”

I followed the links to the Prolixus web site. Where’s the line that explicitly pledges the bottom line if you take the product—a noticeably wider you-know-what? You decide.

The JustAnswer health advice web site recently responded to a question about Prolixus. Here was the commentary of a London based Internal medicine specialist:

I would say that first of all prolixus is not approved by FDA being a herbal product. There is not any medication at present in the market which can increase size of penis, in fact you will waste your time and money for using these products. The only effective way to increase the size is to go for penile enlargement surgery which is effective and can give good results in a real sense. The safety after using prolixus is not known because of lack of studies.

The product runs at over $75 for a single bottle. In my opinion, the management of any radio station that runs ads like this ought to be ashamed of itself.

What do you think? Got a least favorite radio ad? Let Radio Survivor know about it.

It’s election season again at Pacifica radio, the five station listener supported radio network, and that means another season of mud slinging, dishonesty, lawsuits, and wasted money. This time I’m not participating—that means I’m not endorsing any slate and I’m not voting in the election at my local station: KPFA-FM in Berkeley.

For the uninitiated, here’s Pacifica radio’s internal democracy in a nutshell. Periodically the network’s bona fide listener subscribers and staff (paid and volunteer) vote for local boards of 24 members each. These boards have some authority over budgets and key management hirings. They also appoint delegates to the network’s ultimate authority: the Pacifica Governing Board, which appoints a new Executive Committee every year. The Governing Board oversees the Pacifica Foundation, which owns all Pacifica property, including the network’s five FM licenses in Berkeley, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Houston.

Worse by any standard

But by any metric, democracy at Pacifica has been a disaster. Has it alleviated Pacifica’s famously contentious atmosphere? No. In fact, the internal life of Pacifica has arguably become much worse on a day-to-day level. Has it helped to improve the network’s air sound? To the extent that there have been improvements, they have taken place in spite of Pacifica governance, not because of it. (more…)

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…)