Monday, May 14, 2007

CBS Can't Get Out of the Dog House

The headline in today’s New York Post says it all:

ASIAN-SLUR SHOCK JOCKS GET 'IMUSED'

JV and Elvis, who were suspended on April 23 for a mock call made to a Chinese Restaurant on their WFNY morning show called The Dog House got canned by CBS Radio this weekend.

In the call, which was riddled with Asian stereotypes and sexual innuendo, the caller told a woman employee that he would like to "come to your restaurant so I can see your hot Asian spicy ass."

He then attempts to order "flied lice," and uses a series of racial slurs and four lettered words.

The caller tells the first restaurant employee, "I would like some Asian food, son of a bitch" as well as to the second employee; "I would love to have lots of Asian food, son of a bitch."

The caller then tells another employee that he would like some "flied lice," but not "some old dung" and indicated that "I am training in Kung Fu, bitch" before ending with "Tell that hot Asian girl answering the telephone, I'd like to tap her ass."

You Tube has the audio file of JV and Elvis bit. You can listen to it at this link.

The bit was actually performed prior to the famous Imus meltdown on April 4, when he referred to Rutgers women’s basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." For some strange reason it was rebroadcast the next day.

The first airing of the bit did not attract any attention, but when it was rebroadcast it fueled a controversy that spread from Mott Street in New York to Beijing in China.

The Organization of Chinese Americans expressed outrage over the bit, which it described as "racist, vulgar and sexist."

In a press release, the OCA called for an immediate apology from the hosts, their producer and the station. They also demanded the immediate firing of the shock jocks.

CBS still reeling from the Imus fall out, immediately suspended the duo without pay. Now over a month later, the beleaguered network has confirmed on Saturday that the "The Dog House with JV and Elvis," hosted by Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, "will no longer be broadcast on WFNY."

The OCA was pleased with CBS’s decision.

"This is a victory not only for the Asian-American community, but for all communities who find themselves constant targets of racist and sexist programming," said Jeanette Wang, an OCA executive.

No doubt complicating the situation for CBS was the outrageous bit performed by syndicated shock jocks Opie and Anthony on Thursday, where they interviewed a character named Homeless Charlie, who described his desire to have rough sex with Condaleezza Rich, Laura Bush, and Queen Elizabeth. O & A’s performance was recognized by Talking Radio, as the Worst Talk Hosts of the previous week.

CBS confirmed that O & A were not being suspended or cancelled and their show will be broadcast today in its regular time period – 6 AM to 9 AM EST.

Talk radio fans are concerned about whether the firing of JV & Elvis, represents an infringement of free speech rights of talk radio hosts.

More than 100 people turned out for a rally in New York to offer support for them, Imus and other radio personalities under fire.

"It’s not about whether you like what you heard or not," said Debbie Wolf of Far Hills, NJ, president of People Against Censorship. "I find censorship to be far more offensive than anything that was said."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who is JV and Elvis? I am of Asian ancestry, specifically Japanese. I heard the bit, the first 1 minute.11 seconds and I got bored. They got fired because their ratings sucked. With Howard Stern gone, CBS needs to find a new format. And that's a progressive talk show.

Anonymous said...

I guess we don't have a way to respond to the "briefs" with the new lay-out, so....
Trojans pull out of O&A: I guess turnabout is fair play. This is sort of like man bites dog.

WYD signs Hartmann: This is a sleeper that could turn out to be big news. Could this lead to Hartmann jumping to Jones? Thom has little reason to be loyal to AAR. And WYD has a history with Jones and working relationship with Jones. Hartmann apparently owns his own national show (he does his local show as a Clear Channel employee). He took his show from i.e. American to self-syndication through Envision (the same outfit Tom Athans is using to syndicate Leslie Marshall) and then over to AAR syndication. Going to Jones would be a good move for Thom and a major nail in AAR's coffin.

Speaking of Leslie Marshall: Has ANY station picked her up yet?

Anonymous said...

Poor Emacee. He and Brian Maloney (assuming that they're different people) have been predicting that Air America would fail for three years now and so far they've been disappointed over and over and over. My heartfelt sympathies!

Anonymous said...

Jv and Elvis were the best new show to hit NYC since Stern.

They were new to the market, they were in a crappy time slot, they had absolutely no type of promotion what-so-ever... Yet they still managed to pull competitive numbers with Opie and Anthony, and even beat the Radio Chick in most of the demos.

Program Director John Manielli of WFNY FREE FM, wanted to put them in Afternoon drive because he knew that they were gaining a huge fan base all by word of mouth.

Then came some over sensitive publicity driven group- parading all over tv, news papers and internet sites.. Calling them racists, sexists, every other IST in the dictionary.. Demanding and threatening for them to be fired.

Well the OCA..the C stands for CENSORSHIP, got their way... Jv and Elvis were unable to defend themselves, were gagged and fired.. So the OCA won when they were fired but everyone else lost.

Atleast all the independant news websites, and television shows made them look like the idiotic super sensitive clones they are.

To the OCA rep. who said their are two types of Free Speech.."FREE SPEECH AND SPEECH THAT HURTS."

I think you should study up on where you are from, and why people are so aggresive in labeling your fradualent group as nothing more than censorship advocates, through force, misrepresantation and threats.

The DOGHOUSE WILL BE BACK, and I hope next time the company they work for tell the over sensitive Politically Correct Police to screw.

http://www.doghouseforum.com