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Oops He Left The Mic On …
June 7, 2022
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Let me tell you a story about a talented air personality who never lived up to his potential. I will refer to this person as Ralph. While you read this, I bet you will think about someone just like him.
A Natural …
We got to know Ralph when he was working at Burger King. Our midday personality came back from a late lunch one day and told us about this funny kid. So, several of us had to go see for ourselves. She was right, the kid behind the counter was funny. He had us doubled up laughing while we ordered. In the next group air talent critique session, we told the PD about him. We took him over for him to check Ralph out and he instantly took to this guy. Right on the spot, our PD asked Ralph if he'd like to be on the radio.Only In America ...
Ralph started working at the station in the promotions department. He did well despite a tendency to bring his many personal problems into the workplace. Over time he sucked up to The General Manager and that led toward a part-time on-air position far ahead of the PD’s plans for him. However, the PD thought nothing of the GM's gentle nudge. Ralph became everyone's protege and we all helped the PD get him ready for some weekend late hours on the air work.I Knew Something Was Off...
I was glad to help him too, but I kept him at arm’s length. There was something about him that seemed a little off. One thing especially bothered me. Ralph never took responsibly for anything that would go wrong during his time on the air. He would always blame it on something.Two Faced ...
You would think working into the wee hours of the morning would keep someone out of trouble, wrong. He was always creating chaos. Although Ralph was overnight, he found time to come in during the day and instigate office drama. His ulterior motive was to deflect attention from his shortcomings. He wasn't doing all his assigned production and he would tape breaks in advance of his paid remote appearances. The breaks would air with him not showing until after the first break had aired. He did that a lot and got away with it.Promoted Again ...
The new PD had persuaded management into a perceptional research study to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the station. According to the findings, Ralph was our best-known air talent. Despite all the problems he caused, Ralph was promoted from overnights to the morning show team.Stuff Catches Up ...
Then it finally happened. A situation came up that Ralph could not deflect away. Part of his deal when he joined The Morning Show was to do the 9am hour by himself. It was music intensive, and he only had a couple of commercial breaks where he was required to talk. Well one morning, he made the mistake of not turning the microphone off. It was one of those consoles with the slide up and down module. The engineer had warned us to never leave the pod module at the voice level we liked and just push it on or off. We were supposed to slide the volume pod down to zero and push the module off.Whoops …
Ralph always did what he wanted. He left the pod up and forgot to hit the module to turn the mic off. He took a call from an underage teenager and a portion of their X-rated conversation was heard by all that listened. That included the GM and everyone in the office. Only about 30 seconds went out over the air before the engineer went in and rescued him. I wasn't listening that morning, but I heard all about it. Apparently from what went over the air, you could tell that Ralph and the teenager knew each other.You're Out Of Here ...
The PD pulled him off the air and hustled him into the GM's office. The midday person had to go in a half hour earlier and finish the shift. No, I wasn’t there, but there were plenty of witnesses to the event to fill me in. That included the GM's secretary who sat in on the impromptu meeting to take notes. To make matters worse, while the meeting was going on, the underaged teenager’s mother had called the business line and left a message with our receptionist. Ralph was fired in the meeting. The PD had the engineer pull the logger tape and played it back in our emergency programming meeting that afternoon.In The End ...
The moral of the story, work at your craft, mind your own business, be courteous, follow directions, avoid becoming egotistical, and remember to turn off your mic. Let your talent and work ethic speak for itself. -
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