SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic

Posted: May 16 2007 05:18 am

XM suspends Opie and Anthony for 30 days
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 15, 9:04 PM ET

XM Satellite Radio suspended shock jocks Opie and Anthony for 30 days Tuesday, one week after they aired crude sex comments about Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth II and one day after they made light of the incident in their broadcast.

"Comments made by Opie and Anthony on yesterday's broadcast put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter," Washington-based XM said in a statement. "The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them."

Opie and Anthony, who last week apologized for the sex comments, struck a more defensive tone on Monday's broadcast. They lamented the state of radio and what they perceived as excessive reactions to comments made by themselves and other radio disc jockeys.

"We're under the same scrutiny as (National Public Radio) — it doesn't make sense," they said on Monday's show.

The pair also expressed sympathy for Don Imus, saying his career is now "gone, just because he was trying to entertain people."

Last month, cable network MSNBC dropped its simulcast of Imus' show, then CBS Radio fired him for using racist and sexist terms to describe the Rutgers women's basketball team.

On May 9, Opie and Anthony, whose full names are Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia, aired a segment with a man they call Homeless Charlie. As the names of Rice, Bush and the queen came up, Charlie said in vulgar terms that he would like to have sex with each of them.

Opie and Anthony laughed as they imagined Rice's "horror" while describing a violent sexual encounter in which Rice is punched in the face.

Opie and Anthony were fired by CBS Radio in 2002 after broadcasting a call from two listeners who said they were having sex in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

XM hired the pair in 2004. Because the show airs on satellite radio, its content is not subject to regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.

Opie and Anthony also host a syndicated, tamer terrestrial radio program for CBS. Opie and Anthony will be on the air for that program as scheduled Wednesday morning, CBS Radio said Tuesday.

A call to Opie and Anthony's agent, Robert Eatman, was not immediately returned Tuesday.

A spokesman for XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. declined to say whether Opie and Anthony would be paid during their suspension, calling it a contractual matter.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070516/ap_en_ot/shock_jocks_sex_comment

Posted: May 16 2007 05:19 am

Too bad these fucktards only got suspended. I would have laughed my ass off if they had managed to get themselves fired from a THIRD radio station.

Posted: May 16 2007 11:47 am

Oh those guys are hilarious...if you were to go back in time to when I was 16 or so. And even then, I thought their material was kinda tired.

Posted: May 16 2007 12:06 pm

The intro to Opie & Anthony's show is funnier than everything you've wrote on this site. And that intro song is fucking annoying.

Please do not I said "wrote". Some of the comics on this site are pretty fucking hilarious.

Anyway, I think it's good that they stood up for themselves, you don't see enough of that shit these days. Good for them. I'll miss O&A, but Ron & Fez can keep me amused in the meantime.

Posted: May 16 2007 01:18 pm

A lot of people are saying that thie suspensions are an attack on the 1st Amendment. Those people are morons.

The fact is, their boss told them to apologize, and they did. Then they started mocking the apology they gave as well as the people in charge. This is simply a matter of a boss suspending employees that cause trouble. What's the big fucking deal? Since when are the airwaves free reign? They are OWNED by corporations, and the sooner people figure that out the better off we all are.

Posted: May 16 2007 02:05 pm

Since when is satillite radio goverened by the FCC and sponsors? XM pays for their airwaves, for the most part, by customer subscriptions. There's no commercials. It's a stupid move by XM.

Posted: May 16 2007 03:06 pm

Sock wrote:

Since when is satillite radio goverened by the FCC and sponsors? XM pays for their airwaves, for the most part, by customer subscriptions. There's no commercials. It's a stupid move by XM.

XM is worried because Congress has to approve the merger they agreed to with Sirius. XM needs this merger to stay viable as they are pretty much bleeding money out of every pore with not many sources of renewable income save the subscription money. Congress is going to pressure the two stations to accept regulations in exchange for rubber stamping the merger UNLESS it can prove that the content on their stations isn't overly vulgar or cheap.

Having a homeless guy talk about raping Condi Rice and then mocking your bosses over a forced apology pisses off Congress AND the execs at XM, which was a really stupid move on the parts of O&A.

Posted: May 16 2007 03:40 pm

I commend them for it, it's good to see people have a spine, and they won't go down for standing up for themselves, XM knows they need O&A. In the scenario where XM does fire them, that's a stupid move by XM, not O&A. XM is stupid for suspending them anyway, over at Wackbag.com, people are freaking the fuck out, and threatening to cancel their subscriptions, and some people definitely will.

Posted: May 16 2007 03:49 pm

Sock wrote:

I commend them for it, it's good to see people have a spine, and they won't go down for standing up for themselves, XM knows they need O&A. In the scenario where XM does fire them, that's a stupid move by XM, not O&A. XM is stupid for suspending them anyway, over at Wackbag.com, people are freaking the fuck out, and threatening to cancel their subscriptions, and some people definitely will.

I agree; XM is literally committing suicide if they fire O&A. But let's not kid ourselves about O&A's importance. XM is tanking with or without O&A...that's why they're trying desperately to merge with Sirius. Those two aren't nearly as important to the landscape of radio as Howard Stern is or ever was. They don't have 1/4 the listener base as Howard on account of them being fired so many times and burning bridges everywhere they go. If O&A are gone, the only ones who are really going to miss them are XM's shareholders.

And this coming from a guy who could give a shit less about Howard or O&A and prefer neither over the other, although I have listened to both quite a bit.

Posted: May 16 2007 03:57 pm

XM has 7,500,000 subscrivers, Sirius has 6,000,000, so the argument of Stern getting more listeners, maybe, but does it really matter? All that matters is customers are paying for their subscriptions.

And all this shit I hear about XM losing money, if they are, they have no excuses seeing as they have more subscribers.

Posted: May 16 2007 08:01 pm

Mitch Hedberg wrote:

"They said you can swear on XM radio. No shit, cause nobody can hear it! You can swear in the woods too."

As a side note: Lazlow better replace O&A full time now.

Posted: May 17 2007 02:50 pm

O & A are not funny. But whatever, that's still stupid on XM's part.