After Producer Rick Delgado was fired from HOT 97 in New York for airing an explicitly anti-Asian and racist song about tsunami victims, Clear Channel Radio has hired Delgado at local hip hop station Wild 94.9. He starts work on Monday.
Two years ago, when Michael Savage was fired from MSNBC for his racist and anti-gay remarks, guess who picked him up? 910am KNEW, a Bay Area Clear Channel station! Don't let the music fool you. Clear Channel is really a right-wing media corporation using our airwaves to promote bias and our music to make billions.
Are you going to let Clear Channel import racism from around the country and sell it to you on your airwaves? We didn't think so.
On Monday, July 11th, contact Kim Bryant, CC?s Regional Vice President, and Dennis Martinez, Program Director at 94.9, and let them know the Bay Area says no to racism on our public airwaves. Our communities demand less hate radio and more media justice!
TAKE ACTION: email: KIM BRYANT kimbryant at clearchannel.com??????
DENNIS MARTINEZ dennismartinez at clearchannel.com?????? cc: JERRY DOVE, Community Affairs, jerrydove at clearchannel.com bcc: unplugCC at youthmediacouncil.org
[Sample Letter]
Subject: The Bay Area Says NO to Hate Radio
I am a community member outraged that Clear Channel continues to promote racist shock jocks like Rick Delgado. If he was racist enough to be fired in New York City, he is the wrong choice for the Bay Area.
As a diverse urban community, the Bay Area deserves less hate radio and more just media. Emmis Communications did the right thing by firing Rick Delgado. I demand that Clear Channel do the same. No second chances for hate radio.
I know that Clear Channel?s broadcast license is up for renewal this Fall. If Clear Channel continues its pattern of corporate irresponsibility I?ll be joining thousands of others to demand the FCC revoke your license to abuse our public airwaves.
Sincerely,
*__________ name
*__________ city
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO JOIN THE CAMPAIGN TO UNPLUG CLEAR CHANNEL, email unplugCC at youthmediacouncil.org
STORY Station hires twice-fired producer of offensive parody Brad Kava, Mercury News
YLD-FM (Wild 94.9), the San Francisco radio station that fired members of its controversial ''Morning Doghouse'' for making offensive sexual comments off and on air, has hired an even more controversial figure to replace them: the twice-fired New York producer who aired a couple allegedly having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral and a song parody about tsunami devastation that included anti-Asian racial epithets.
The managers of the Clear Channel-owned station, Kim Bryant and Dennis Martinez, said they consider producer Rick Delgado to be a major talent in morning radio, and added that he will be carefully supervised on the ''Strawberry in the Morning,'' with local deejay Strawberry and Miami import Fay Carmona, which starts Monday at 6 a.m.
In an exclusive interview with the Mercury News first reported on mercurynews.com, Delgado said his earlier actions were edgy, but misinterpreted, and added that he wouldn't change his act very much for the new station.
''It was a matter of bad taste, like a blond joke,'' Delgado said of the ''Tsunami Song,'' which was set to the tune of ''We Are the World'' and made a joke of people dying in the Dec. 26 tsunami.
Delgado said the song was meant to parody a then-promised tsunami song by Sharon Stone and Sharon Osbourne.
''His job is to say he won't be censored, but he will be,'' said Bryant, who got her start in Spanish radio and now heads 11 stations in the Bay Area, including San Jose's KUFX-FM (98.5), KCNL-FM (104.9) and KSJO-FM (92.3).
''We are in it for the long run,'' Bryant said. ''We are going to protect our license, and we are here for the community and the listeners.''
The tsunami song, which drew massive protests from minority groups, was aired on New York's Hot 97, WQHT-FM, on the ''Miss Jones in the Morning Show.''
''It was meant to be a bad spoof of celebrities and telethons,'' Delgado said. ''My job is to put stuff out there and see what gets a reaction. Hopefully, people will get a kick out of it.'' Delgado and air personality Todd Lynn were ultimately fired, and three other morning show members, including ''Miss Jones,'' were suspended for two weeks.
Delgado said that managers at the station owned by Emmis Communications knew about the song and approved it before it aired. After protests from Asian media watchdog groups and politicians, the station contributed $1 million toward tsunami relief.
''We are appalled at the lack of sensitivity to the pain and suffering of the recent South Asian tsunami victims,'' said Ginny Gong, president of the national Organization of Chinese Americans, at the time. ''Miss Jones and Todd Lynn's broadcast included racially insensitive and inflammatory statements that encourage hatred and violence towards people of Asian descent.''
She added: ''The use of racial slurs is simply unacceptable, no matter what one's ethnicity.''
Delgado, who is of Spanish and Puerto Rican descent, said he thought racial humor was still acceptable, so long as the person making fun of a race is of that race. ''When you hear it from your own people, it doesn't make it seem as racial,'' he said. ''It's not supposed to be racial. It's supposed to be a goof.''
The station aims for an audience of women from ages 18-34. It was eighth in the market among all listeners over 12 in the last ratings period, with roughly a 2.9 percent share of 5.8 million listeners.
Since terminating ''Doghouse'' in April, the station has been playing music in the mornings, something Martinez said hasn't hurt ratings, but ''could only last for so long.'' Host Strawberry, who got his nickname for being a scrawny redhead, is a graduate of St. Francis High School in Mountain View. He started as an intern at San Jose's Hot 97.7 in 1995, before moving up to Wild 94.9.
''I was the 'answer the phone and write the dedications and go put a sticker on the bumper guy,' '' he said of his early days. ''I did the Christmas Eve show when the real deejays were gone.''
He studied business and radio at San Jose State University, and he lives in Santa Clara. The long drive to his 6 a.m. show in San Francisco will give him time to think of bits, he said.
Co-host Fay Carmona, who plans to live in the Castro district in San Francisco, said she is a ''very proud bisexual woman'' and won't be one of those ''nodders'' and ''uh-huh'' sidekicks.
''I'm going to speak my mind and represent women to the fullest,'' she said, ''but be the girl next door they can relate to.''