Dear whiners: get over your racial sensitivities

Last week, there was a bit of a ripple involving local top 40 radio station KDWB and a parody song entitled "30 Hmongs in a House" done by the Dave Ryan Show's producer, Steve-O, set to the tune of Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven". The lyrics, while terribly offensive to some had me laughing when the song originally aired sometime during the week of March 21.

The song, supposedly suggested by a listener in some wacky morning radio bit they were doing between one of the eight songs they play over the course of four hours, poked fun at stereotypes of the Hmong population in the Twin Cities. The Dave Ryan Show has a decent relationship with the Hmong population in the Twin Cities and they love to rib that population -- and it seems to be well received.

But after issuing an apology via the show's Facebook page due to a few persons of Hmong descent being offended, an advertiser has now stepped up and pulled their ads from KDWB. HealthPartners, who had been advertising their online clinic VirtuWell, on Friday yanked all advertising from the station indefinitely.

My advice is to get the hell over it. Because a few culturally sensitive people raised their voices over a song which was heard by about 10% of the entire metro population, the station will likely have to issue some sort of heartfelt apology and maybe even go as far as making a donation to some charity which supports the Hmong population (about 50,000 in the Twin Cities metro area) to appease HealthPartners.

It's just another example of advertisers, for better or worse, having far too much influence over the content of commercial media. I'm not a die-hard Dave Ryan fan but I do admit to listening to the mornng show on KDWB. I don't particularly care for the music but the show does have some comedic value to it. For once I'd like to see a media company thumb their nose at an advertiser who jumped ship due to "questionable content" and stand their ground. An apology, especially when the parody wasn't cruel at all, is all for show no matter what the circumstances are. Do stand-up comedians apologize to people who have been offended by something in their act? There's absolutely no reason to apologize for this parody either? After all, what other young-targeting radio station is HealthPartners going to run to in an effort to get the word out about VirtuWell -- 96.3 Now? Sure.

KDWB's War of the Roses is fake

The first clue that the feature entitled “War of the Roses” on local Top 40 station 101.3 KDWB-FM is fake is that when a station calls someone they must inform the person they are calling that they are being recorded. That alone should tip people off that the insanity that ensues when a suspicious woman sets up her man to see who he will send a dozen roses to is entirely fabricated. But some people fail to see the truth.

It’s been discussed back and forth in the inner circles of media insiders

and media watchers but this week it all came bubbling to the surface. Gawker specifically names the faked bit as “War of the Roses”. The name is used nationally and while it’s best known here in the Twin Cities as being a weekly staple of the Dave Ryan Show on KDWB, even the over-exposed Ryan Seacrest in Los Angeles uses the bit on his morning show.

In short, the callers are provided by a company called United Stations Radio Networks (helmed by Dick Clark). The bulk of the talent used for this bit and other pot-stirring radio bits on a number of large Top 40 radio stations are actors plucked from New York City among other places across the country. They are given talking points and a basic outline but the majority is ad libbed and done so quite well.

But it doesn’t stop at staged bits to expose supposedly cheating spouses. When a ludicrous topic is posed by a morning DJ, often times a caller conveniently pops up with an equally ludicrous take on the topic. Many of those scenarios are staged by Dick Clark’s United Stations Radio Network as well. The bottom line is if it sounds too crazy to be real then it’s probably bullshit.

Now while I’m not saying that every wacky bit Dave Ryan (Kibler if you’re all for realism and truth) does on his KDWB morning show is straight up bullshit I think that this company set up by Dick Clark and Premiere Radio Networks (a company under the Clear Channel umbrella) to provide actors for radio bits and calls should be proof enough to be at least skeptical about what you hear during your favorite morning show. Just take t hings with a grain of salt and remember that radio was originally billed as theater of the mind -- not everything you hear is real.