removed from the studio

Have any of you ever witnessed or heard of a situation where someone was physically removed from the studio because they were out of control on the air? If not, have you ever seen anything turn physical when someone was abruptly fired?

This did not take place in the studio....... but out at an event, at a Speedway!! Our afternoon guy was wasted, and supposed to be cutting voice tracks from the Speedway.... but could not form a few words, let alone good breaks!! Our PD had to physically take the mic out of his hand, and the headphones off of his ears!! He was arrested a few hours later for being disorderly, the arrest took place right in front of the local news stations TV camera, with our guy wearing his station T-Shirt, station Hat, and station VIP badge!!

I actually witnessed fist fight between a GM/Owner and a Station Manager. I was walking in the station to come to work, and they were screaming at each other, next thing you know, it comes to blows. Needless to say, the cops came out and busted it up. Needless to say, the station manager never stepped foot in the building again.

It's more common than you think... long hours, little sleep, crappy employers.

Saw a night producer get in a bad sissy yelling match with the eves jock. They get in a fight... ON AIR, played a song and continued to whoop up on each other. It took three of us to break them up. (They apparently had more than time slots in common...hmmm...)

Hope she was worth it because they would both arrested, fined and fired.

VERITAS DE VOCE said:

It's more common than you think... long hours, little sleep, crappy employers.

Saw a night producer get in a bad sissy yelling match with the eves jock. They get in a fight... ON AIR, played a song and continued to whoop up on each other. It took three of us to break them up. (They apparently had more than time slots in common...hmmm...)

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OUCH!

Sadly this sort of thing isn't limited to commercial radio. I'm not fully informed on details, but let's just say when teenagers let their egos get out of control while they are in the studio...

R

Say it itsn't so! Fighting High school students? No way!!!!!! What is this world coming to? Quick get John travolta and Olivia Newton John on the phone now! Send for Dobie Gillis!

I'm reminded of the famous (to some) Ron Chavis/WPEZ Pittsburgh episode sometime in the late 70's. Ron told the story on the air that his name was not included on future 'jock scheduling memos'. He went on to say something like...."so he who rocks hardest (meaning himself) blah blah....so, I'm gonna leave when I wanna leave...so, here's the "Theme From Shaft".....he then mentions the mangement and then says something like......."whenever Pittsburgh wants a station that rocks with about 500,000 watts of power, then I'll be back....till then....." He then walked out of the station and let the song run out. Management had to come in and put something on the air. But, there was a LOT of dead air (LOL). There is an aircheck of this floating aroound somewhere....the folks on the Pittsburgh board probably know where. (Clarke Ingram)

As a young PD (early 1980s) I had to physically remove a drunken, format breaking jock from the studio...on Christmas Day no less. Fired him on the spot. This was his second on-air drunk offense.

It was too bad really. He was quite talented, but had substance abuse issues.

KPLEXCOMPLEX said:

Say it itsn't so! Fighting High school students? No way!!!!!! What is this world coming to? Quick get John travolta and Olivia Newton John on the phone now! Send for Dobie Gillis!

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That'd cost too much. The cheaper approach is to threaten them with repeated spins of Muskrat Love. ;D

R

About 12 years ago, when I was in college, I held a part-time overnight board-op position at an AM station in the city where my college was. One night at about 2am, two jocks got into an argument over the phone. The off-site jock, who had been out drinking at one of the station-sponsored bar events, came in to confront the one in the FM studio in person, and a fight broke out. I heard it from my own studio down the hall just as it was breaking up and spilling out into the corridor, and the jock who came in was storming out of the building. I went to check on the jock in the studio and found him with minor facial injuries, and feeling around the floor for his glasses. The glasses had been knocked off during the fight, and finally showed up busted. I had to put material on the air for him, because he was legally blind without them, and could barely see the buttons on the console.

I made a couple of phone calls and received no answer from anyone in my chain of command, but eventually made contact with the station ops manager. He was understandably peeved at being awakened in the middle of the night, and doubly so for the circumstances. He told me that if the other jock came back to call the police and have him removed from the building. He then slammed the phone down, cutting off his own stream of muttered obscenities.

I helped the jock in the sutdio clean up during the 15-20 minute show segments of the infomercials I was running that night, and there was a lot to clean up. You know those big 6-foot tall chrome wire carousel racks for cd's & carts? The ones that hold 600 of each...? Two of them had been knocked over, and a third partially emptied onto the others as it was crashed into during the fight. The cd's & carts were ankle deep on the floor behind the console. I helped him re-alphabetize some of it for a while, but then left at the end of my shift around 6 am. He stayed on to finish cleaning up, and exlpain to the day shift why so many cd jewel cases and carts were now busted.

The following week, presumably after the two jocks had been reprimanded, *I* got yelled at for calling the ops manager in the middle of the night. I was told it was not an issue he should have been notified of; that it was no concern of his - despite there being 10 minutes of dead air while the jocks were fighting. I was also told that type of behavior was a regular thing between the two jocks, and I needed to "lighten up a bit". I voluntarily left the employ of that company about two weeks later, after I was forced to stay four extra hours on Thanksgiving morning. I found that the jock who was supposed to relieve me was on vacation, and the PD "forgot" to schedule a replacement for the shift after me. Unfortunately, the whole experience of working for that company was unpleasant from beginning to end, but hey - it got me drinking money while I was in school...

...of course, there was Roby Yonge doing the Paul-McCartney-is-dead bit on WABC New York in October '69, and Doug Dahlgren & Dick Sainte goofing on the pending format change on WCFL Chicago in March of '76. Both acts were removed in mid-show and personally escorted out of the stations by management and their rent-a-cops. The Yonge broadcast survives on aircheck; I haven't come across any circulating airchecks of the "offending" Dick&Doug broadcast, but the following day they shared an hour with Fred Winston on WLS...

Wasn't Frankie Blue removed from 102.7 WNEW in 2005 while he was drunk on the air?

I don't know, but I have audio of that, I also have audio of former WBHH 92.1 in norfolk VA a day before a format flip from hip-hop to soft rock and the last DJ on went disgruntled and started playing all explicit music on the air, f-bombs were everywhere for about a good 30 min before dead air ensued for about 8 minutes, and resumed with automation. a friend of mine called the station and spoke with the guy..apparently he locked himself in the studio and "just didn't care anymore"

A couple of funny stories that don't exactly fall under the headline of this thread...

Mike Selden was departing KLIF for his much-storied career at KVIL in 1973. His last shift at KLIF was on a Saturday, and he was alone in the building, no one to monitor or stop him. So he goes on a shift-long plug about his move to KVIL, where to go on the dial, when to tune in, etc, and I'm sure he got a few choice comments in about the new KLIF ownership and such. Wish that aircheck was archived somewhere! And, to rub the other KLIF's jocks' noses in Selden's successes, KVIL rented the billboard Downtown that faced the KLIF control room window, and put up a nice, full-size shot of Mike and all about his move to KVIL. What a morale-deflator for the McLendon-less KLIF.

Another story comes from one of my journalism teachers in college. He was working for a little New Mexico station early in his career. The owner/station manager/PD was this self-absorbed, evil little man who found fault with anything and everything any of his employees did (I'll leave the owner's name out, as apparently he's still alive and still in NM radio.) Apparently every day was a one-sided shouting match. Now this was a one-horse town, and if you wanted to do radio there, this was where you were stuck. And not being one to quit, my teacher put up with it, and let the emotions build on him and wear him down. He started getting severe problems with muscles tensing up so badly that he could barely walk or move. UNTIL ONE DAY...the owner finally pushed the wrong button with my teacher, and my teacher popped a gasket. He literally leaped up onto the owner's desk, started screaming and shouting and threatening bodily harm, kicked everything off the guy's desk, etc etc. My teacher got him told with no uncertain terms, and left. And strangely enough, no more muscle pain, so more spasms, no more health issues...immediately.

I guess the lesson here is that sometimes your sanity is worth more than a paycheck.

And one more, which is better told by occasional Radio-Info poster Joe King...who was on duty at WFAA-AM on a Saturday in August, 1978, when the police came into the Belo building and busted KZEW jock L. G. Richardson while Richardson was on the air! King had to step in and do double-duty to keep both stations on the air.

Here are couples of additional stories that don’t quite fall under the topic.

One time a student missed a scheduled break. IIRC this happened about midway through a school year. Andrea marches into the studio, grabs the student’s face and thrusts it toward the wall clock and forcefully lays a verbal “watch the clock” line on the student. Then there was that time this same lady gave medication to a student without parental or physician approval.

The second story involves a former part-timer from the early 1990’s. This guy wanted to work for us full-time so badly, he pulled the classic “berate everyone else to make me look good” trick. He wrote a two to three page memo to Dr. Griffin; slamming everyone on the staff and claimed only he was the rightful candidate for such a position, all the while no such position was available. What made it worse was he sent the same memo to Dr. Griffin’s boss! A later fight with the school’s security guard finally led to his termination.

R

It's an Oklahoma thing, but one of the funniest things that I've heard happen on the air is Drunken Lisa Mirek going off on the management and co-workers for an extended rampage before the plug was pulled on her on 96.9, Bob in OKC. The strangest part is they let here come back on the air. After making national headlines and putting finable cussing on the air badmouthing the management, she got to stay until her contract ended.

Only in radio....

???

AUGUST 1974 Nortorious drug king pin Fred Gomez Carasco of Mexico, and S.Texas. who personally had 2 deputy sheriiffs killed ,4 Mexican Federales,and 9 rival drug members was in Huntsville Prison. One night he and 2 othe convicts took 3 hostages, and held them for 2 days. he negotiated for a get away car. One night he and the others tried to use a portable blackboard ,laden with very thick library books taken from the prison library tobe used asa bullet proof shield. Texas rangers, local law Enforcement, and prison guards opened fire. Freddie was dead.
Over in San Antonio on KONO all night DJ Jim Edwards heard the news and proceeded fro the next 90 min, played over and over again the big hit from the movie "Superfly',"Freddies Dead" by Curtis Mayfield. The phones lit up, death threats by the score from certain sections of the city( if you ever been there, you know where). Management tried to get him to stop and had a locksmith unhinge the door and removed him.
Shortly afterwards he was gone only to turn up a little over a year later on ...K..V..I..LLLL!

'Plex;
I heard that story from a Fiesta Carnival carny back in the '80's. The fellow said he was the jock. I don't recall his name, but I thought he said it happened on KTSA. He was very proud of what he had done.

I've heard that Ron Chapman once physically removed a sales person from KVIL's FM studio and threw him out the station's front door into the hallway. No sales people allowed in the control room.

As former KLBJ-AM talk host Paul Pryor ended one of his shifts in the mid-90's, the police were waiting for him on the other side of the glass. They had a warrant for his arrest, but I can't remember what he'd done.

Grant, Nope it was Gentlemen Jim. I was interning at KONO at the time. He ALMOST went to KTSA,but those nasty non-competes that Mr.Roth loved to enforce prohibited that.