Howard Stern, whose radio shows popularized the term "shock jock"
Ashock jock is a radio broadcaster orDJ who entertains listeners and attracts attention using humor or melodramatic exaggeration that may offend some portion of the listening audience. The term is used pejoratively to describe provocative or irreverentbroadcasters whose mannerisms, statements and actions are typically offensive to much of society. It is a popular term within the radio industry. A shock jock is the radio equivalent of thetabloid newspaper in that both consider entertaining their audience to be as important as—if not more important than—providing factual information. A radio station that relies primarily on shock jocks for programming has what is called ahot talk format.
The term is used in two broad, yet sometimes overlapping, contexts:
The radio announcer who deliberately makes outrageous, controversial, or shocking statements, or does boundary-pushing stunts to improve ratings.
The political radio announcer who has an emotional outburst in response to a controversial government policy decision.
The idea of an entertainer who breaks taboos or who is deliberately offensive is not a new one:Blue comedians have existed throughout history; take, for example, offensive performers such asGeorge Carlin,Petronius,Benny Bell,Le Pétomane,Redd Foxx andLenny Bruce.Petey Greene, who started broadcasting in 1966, has been called the original radio shock jock by some,[1] although the term was not used until 1986, two years after Greene's death.[2] Greene was an influence onHoward Stern, whose radio shows in the 1980s led to the first widespread use of the term "shock jock".
Shock jocks also tend to push the envelope of decency in their market, and they may appear to show a lack of regard for communications regulations (e.g.,FCC rules in the U.S.) regarding content. However, nearly all American broadcasters have strict policies against content that is likely to draw indecency forfeitures, and air personalities are often contractually obligated to avoid broadcasting such content.
Many shock jocks have been fired as a result of such punishments as regulatory fines, loss of advertisers, or simply social and political outrage. On the other hand, it is also not uncommon for such broadcasters to be quickly rehired by another station or network. Shock jocks in the United States have been censored under additional pressure from the United States government since the introduction of theBroadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005, which increased the fines on radio stations for violating decency guidelines by nearly 20 times.[3]
1990: Liz Randolph, a personality atWBZZ inPittsburgh, successfully sued the station and its two morning hosts,Jim Quinn and Banana Don Jefferson, for arunning gagsexually harassing her.[4] Quinn remained in his position but over the next several years would gradually transition to a politically oriented format for his show.
1995:Howard Stern responds to the death of singerSelena with a comment on how "Alvin and the Chipmunks have more soul" than Latin musicians and that "Spanish people have the worst taste in music." Stern survived the resultant outrage from the Hispanic community, which extended so far as an arrest warrant fromHarlingen, Texas, that the local justice of the peace left open for a year but, because Stern never entered Harlingen, went unenforced.[8]
1998: Stern is banned fromCHOM-FM inMontreal after remarking that "there's something about the (French) language that turns you into a pussy-assed jack-off." His only other Canadian affiliate,CILQToronto, sustained a barrage of complaints for three years afterward before dropping the show in 2001.[9]
February 24, 1999:Doug Tracht aka The Greaseman was fired from WARW (nowWIAD) after he played a song byGrammy Award-winning rapperLauryn Hill and made a derogatory remark about the lynching and dragging death ofJames Byrd Jr. at the hands of three white men inJasper, Texas, which was ruled a hate crime. A day earlier, the ringleader John William King was found guilty of Byrd's murder. King and his accomplice Lawrence Brewer have since been executed. The third man Shawn Berry is currently serving his life sentence at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice'sRamsey Unit. It wasn't the first time Tracht made insensitive remarks towardsAfrican Americans. OnMartin Luther King Day in 1986 while working atDC101, Tracht made the following remark about Dr. King's assassination, "Kill four more and we can take a whole week off."
June 12, 2001: A rumor thatBritney Spears was dead was scotched by her publicists after the story was spread by two US radio DJs and a hoax website using theBBC logo. Dallas shock jocks Kramer and Twitch told listeners to their KEGL-FM evening show that pop singer Spears and her then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake had been involved in a car accident in Los Angeles. The hoax sparked panic among fans, who called police and fire departments in the hundreds. The story was then turned into a spoof version of a BBC News Online web page, and the link was sent around the world by e-mail. The BBC lodged a strong protest, and the spoof page was removed.[10]
August 16, 2002:Opie and Anthony sponsored a contest where the goal was to have sex in notable public places, calledSex For Sam. The contest went without a major outcry untilSex for Sam 3 after a couple had sex in avestibule atSt. Patrick's Cathedral. The resulting controversy, coupled with an earlier controversy stemming from a raunchy party inBuffalo, New York, led toInfinity Broadcasting cancelling theOpie and Anthony Show. Infinity was fined US$357,500 for the incident.[11]
May 12, 2004: Portland Modern Rock stationKNRK's morning showThe Marconi Show played an audio clip from the beheading ofNick Berg on repeat, adding their snide commentary to it. After the station was flooded with angry phone calls and emails from listeners, KNRK General Manager Mark Hamilton apologised and fired both hosts of the show and their producer, asking listeners to call or write in with their suggestions on how to shape the station for the future. The result was the elimination of shock jocks and most of the hard rock music that made up the station's playlist at the time.
December 2004: The Federal Communications Commission proposed fines totaling $220,000 againstEntercom Communications for alleged indecency violations during multiple broadcasts in April and May 2002 of theJohnny Dare Morning Show onKQRC-FM in Kansas City, Kansas. The FCC claimed that the material included repeated graphic and explicit sexual descriptions that were pandering, titillating or used to shock the audience. As justification for proposing the maximum fine, the Commission noted "the egregious nature of the violations and Entercom's history of prior indecent broadcasts."
2006:J. R. Gach described, on-air, an employee at a restaurant he was patronizing who had suffered serious burns, which later escalated into a series of insults. The subject of Gach's discussion sued him over the comments, citing severe emotional distress and won a US$1,000,000 settlement in December 2007. The lawsuit effectively ended Gach's career; he never again hosted a radio show before his 2015 death.[15]
April 2007:Don Imus is fired for referring to members of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."[16] Eight months later, another network hired Imus, who resumed the same format and would continue to host it until retiring in 2018; he died in 2019.
March 2, 2012:Rush Limbaugh, a politically conservative shock jock, was criticized and faced with an advertiser exodus after makingcomments toward activistSandra Fluke.[17] Limbaugh was not disciplined for the remarks and survived the controversy, with only two small stations (out of nearly 600) dropping the program in the immediate aftermath of the controversy. The controversy had a much longer impact on talk radio as a whole as advertisers became much more reluctant to have their advertising heard on politically charged programs that were subject to being targeted by pressure groups. Limbaugh died in February 2021, still hosting his program to the end.
December 2013: Canadian radio shock jockDean Blundell was indefinitely suspended fromCFNY-FM,[18] following reports that he and cohost Derek Welsman had discussed on the air ajury trial in which Welsman was the foreman.[19] The trial had concerned asexual assault charge against a client of agay bathhouse,[19] and Blundell and Welsman's commentary about it was criticized both forhomophobia and for potentially causing amistrial by publicly discussing the jury deliberations.[19] The program's cancellation was announced in January 2014.[20]
June 2005: Radio DJTim Shaw propositioned glamour modelJodie Marsh live on-air on hisKerrang! FM show by announcing he would leave his family for her. This enraged Shaw's wife, who promptly sold hisLotus Esprit oneBay for50p. Earlier that year he had been suspended for staging a mock burglary at the home of former programme director Andrew Jeffries,[21] and in 2004, after being challenged by listeners, he phoned hissister-in-law live on-air to boast that he fantasized about her during sex with his wife.[22]
July 29, 2009: On his morning breakfast radio show, Australian DJKyle Sandilands provoked outrage when his "Lie Detector" segment featured a 14-year-old girl who, when quizzed on her sexual history by her mother, broke down, revealing she had been raped at the age of 12. Kyle then said her mother meant any intercourse other than rape. The show was suspended for one week. Sandilands provoked further outrage three days after his suspension expired when he made a slur aboutJenny Craig ambassadorMagda Szubanski, saying she could have lost more weight in aconcentration camp. Sandilands was suspended for ten days without pay, and after a review on September 18, had his suspension extended by three weeks. Sandilands returned to air on October 8, apologized for the incident, and was blessed by a priest at the start of the show.
June 13, 2013. A Perth radio host Howard Sattler was fired after he asked prime ministerJulia Gillard if her partnerTim Mathieson was gay because he was a male hairdresser.[24]
^"Radio show suspended after jokes about trial: Shock jocks had apologized for 'homophobic' remarks".Toronto Star, December 2013.
^abc"Jury foreman's jokes spark call for judicial review: Radio producer joins in mocking gays on broadcast after accused is convicted of sex assault of three men".Toronto Star, December 8, 2013.
^"Corus axes Blundell radio show".National Post, January 7, 2014.
