RADIO HOAXES

[rdotinga]

Hi all,

Prince -- or someone saying he was Prince -- was interviewed on the Jeff & Jer show last week.

There's some question about whether this was actually Prince.

Question for you all, for my radio column: What are some memorable hoaxes in the history of San Diego radio? They can be either perpetrated by a radio station or on a radio station.

Let me know if I can quote you by name. My deadline is tomorrow AM, Tuesday.

Thanks!

Randy Dotinga
Radio columnist
North County Times

[Bob_Hudson]

The biggest radio hoax was when Lowry Mays told the New York Times that Clear Channel acquisition of Jacor would pay off through growth rather than cutbacks and economies.  

Check out this one involving KGB and the Space Shuttle: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/comments/885/


A nice little stunt/hoax was the 1976 "KCBQ becomes a thing of the past this Friday" - a reference to that is at http://www.reelradio.com/mg/index.html  - I remember hearing those and wondering why the heck KCBQ was going off the air.

[Garrett]

As for radio hoaxes, I've seen a few April Fools pranks, all from the late 90's:
Hudson and Bauer once walked out on their show and left Stacy Taylor (who was just there to tease what was gong to be on his show) all alone, forcing him to start his show early.
Channel 933 announced they would have their first and last day, only to announce that they would be playing "the first and most recent songs from artitists" to which PD Todd Shannon ended by saying "gotcha."
1998 was hoax city when I was working for Jacor.
Jacor decided to flip the frequencies of all of their stations (except KJQY).
Q106 was now on 1130, and vice versa, Rock 105 and 933 also swapped.
I forget what they did with 91X but I have it on tape somehwere.
Howard Stern returned the favor by calling PD Tim Dukes at home at 3 AM (when Howard's show was played live but recorded for rebroadcast later).

That same year, the Jones on 103.7  played 70s and 80s pop as "The Bubble." (I know Bob remembers THAT one)
KPOP announced that they would flip to all Polka.

Jeff and Jer one year said they were hooking up a new censoring device which would play "Bee Gees" music every time some one said a dirty word. Another year they told their audience that if you blinked your lights at an intersection, that would now cause red lights to turn green (there were people all over town flashing their lights at intersections that day).

92.5 The Flash once did a stunt where they claimed they were flipping from Alternative Rock to Country and the PD pretended to have locked himself into the studio, ending with the onwer of XHRM calling in and saying he would keep the format alternative.

[Media Hack Chris | SDR]

The biggest radio hoax was when Lowry Mays told the New York Times that Clear Channel acquisition of Jacor would pay off through growth rather than cutbacks and economies.  

How's that workin' out? Similar to the merger of XM and Sirius radio. Oh well, all those GM and Chrysler cars will have satellite radio ...

[RadeoEngineer]

The biggest radio hoax was when Lowry Mays told the New York Times that Clear Channel acquisition of Jacor would pay off through growth rather than cutbacks and economies.  

How's that workin' out? Similar to the merger of XM and Sirius radio. Oh well, all those GM and Chrysler cars will have satellite radio ...

Chris you're really getting acerbic in your old age.  I like it.

[JON BRUCE]

In 1961 Top 40 XEAK "The Mighty 6-90" playing one awful song over and over for a number of days ("Moppity Mop" by Len Barry and the Bosstones) but announcing it each time as a different song from the current top 40, peppered by humorous fake ads for phoney products prior to it's format flip to all news XTRA.

[Media Hack Chris | SDR]

Chris you're really getting acerbic in your old age.  I like it.

Bob's a good teacher. I will never fill his acerbic shoes.