Queen Snub, Jokes Cost DJ His Job

No relation to George Michael

ORION MEDIA GROUP radio station BRMB/BIRMINGHAN, ENGLAND on-air host TOM BINNS has lost his job after he pulled the plug on a live broadcast of QUEEN ELIZABETH's II's traditional CHRISTMAS DAY speech, then telling listeners it was "boring." YAHOO.COM reports that the firing came after a number of listeners complained about his interruption.

BINNS cut off the QUEEN's speech by saying on-air, "Two words: Bor-ring," then adding the segue, "from one QUEEN to another..." before playing "Last Christmas" by WHAM, featuring openly gay singer GEORGE MICHAEL.

In his defense BINNS told the CHORTLE comedy website, "After the guy before me finished, we should have taken the news from SKY, and then my show would start. But instead of the news, we got the Queen's speech. I knew it shouldn't be there, but having never heard it before, I didn't know how long it was going to go on for.

"I'm not trained to make editorial decisions, but I decided to get rid of it and make a joke. I said, 'Two words: bor-ring'.... I then went into an old riff about how people say the royal family are good for tourism, but the French beheaded theirs and people still visit FRANCE," before cueing up the WHAM song.

The ORION MEDIA GROUP called the DJ's comments were "inappropriate," adding: "We do not condone what he said in any way, whether said in jest or not. "TOM will now not be featuring again on our radio stations," PD/Marketing Dir. DAVID LLOYD told the BIRMINGHAM POST.

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