Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Radio’s Dirty Little Secret

Recently there’s been a lot of press coverage of radio shows that have crossed the line of social acceptability, and about radio personalities being fired or suspended. Recently, CBS pulled the plug on two New York based radio hosts over their prank call to a Chinese restaurant. What’s interesting is that there’s an element to this story that no one’s reporting. Radio’s dirty little secret is that most on air prank calls are actually fake. That’s right, they’re scripted, rehearsed, fake. The shock jocks are actually pranking actors in-the-know, hired to be their foils. Was that the case in this instance? Don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. Live radio shows simply can’t take the chance and prank someone who might curse on air and violate FCC rules, or sue them for distress. Instead they hire actors and pass it off as real to their listeners. It’s an industry wide practice, and it’s interesting that not a single news article on this story has pondered whether the offending incident was even actually real.

Radio-Online.com story on the fired CBS radio personalities.

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