Morning show on a major market oldies radio station.
Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By” fades out.
HOST: Suzie Sidekick, Entertainment Reporter — that song was written by someone who visited us here a few years ago. Can you tell us who?
SUZIE: Uh….No.
HOST: C’mon!
SUZIE: Holland-Dozier-Holland?
HOST: No.
SUZIE: (desperation in her voice) Paul Anka?
Clue #1: The radio station didn’t “cast” the show properly.
Suzie Sidekick is too young to know and apparently not smart enough to learn the music that is the only thing that oldies station offers its audience.
(Trust me, no one turns them on to hear her “entertainment reports,” which consist of her reading wire service stories about people in show business.)
Clue #2: If you’re the radio morning show host, you never ask a factual question of anyone whose job can be considered “news” or “information” — unless you know in advance the person can answer the question.
Sure, this could have been some sort of running bit, a set-up where Suzie Sidekick was a character never knows the answer.
But it wasn’t. It was just sloppy, bad radio.
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Common fare and just a reminder that they look at the money they are paying out not thinking about smarting up their talent. And if you shared your sincere and valuable wisdom to that Talent would she say , “Noted”or “whatever”? Sadly, the latter. I wish it were different.
News people I know don’t appreciate being ambushed like that. Not blind-siding the newsie, is kind of a companion rule to ” don’t deny the verbal reality”
I have been thrown under the bus in a similar way before. I’m the news director/morning co-host at a country station. In the beginning, I didn’t know squat about country, although I tried to learn the music as best I could. Just a few months into the job, the host asked me the exact same question coming out of a George Strait song I didn’t know. But this is also coming from a guy who said to me on-air, “I saw you chewing your fingernails earlier, is something wrong?” What?! Fortunately I had a quick comeback, but I was livid.
I used to do a bit on a morning show (in dallas) called reporter roulette. Every once in a while (usually a couple of times a week) a sounder would go off and the news guy would know he was in for ‘reporter roulette.’ I’d then spin a wheel (buzzz…tick tick tick…) and it would land on a category. I’d then inform said news guy, he’d then have to find “a story about….” If I was doing it this today I’d say “a story about a fat, druggie politician” or “how low can your approval go?” Needless to say, the newsguy hated it. Often complaining both on-air and to the PD that “it made him look stupid.” I’d respond, “well then be informed.” I kind of liked the idea that the newsguy was seen as a dolt. Oh the irony. If he connected the dots and could find a story to fit the category I’d give him a break from reporter roulette for a few days. If he would shuffle around papers looking for a story for more than 10-15 seconds he’d get the buzzer. Made the news more like a game for the newsguy. god he hated it!