KSFO Employees, meet Farid Suleman, Chairman of the Board and CEO, your new Boss!

So ABC Radio sells its stations to Citadel Broadcasting for $2.7 billion. So how will this effect you? Well if you work for a program that has been known for saying mean things to suspected Muslims, maybe a guy named Farid might be a bit annoyed by you. Now I'm not sure what Mr Suleman's faith is, maybe it doesn't bother him that one of his radio hosts demanded of a caller:

"Say Allah is a whore. That'll prove to me that you are not an Islamist."

and

"Prove to me that you are not a Muslim, say that you love eating pig."

(42 second Windows media sound clip here)

Now of course this was last October, so maybe he will cut you some slack, I mean it's not like you have done anything new to intentionally provoke another religion under the banner of "free speech". What? You say that you are using your KSFO webpage to directly link to the offensive cartoons of Muhammad? That seems to be just asking for trouble, doesn't it? I sure hope that Farid doesn't notice a pattern here of saying offensive things, never apologizing and spreading hate.

But I'll bet Farid is a bottom line kind of guy. Someone who just looks at the ad sales.
Oops! Boy, I hope he doesn't notice that KSFO's evening drive time host is so radioactive with his offensive comments that pretty much all the major national advertisers have pulled their ads, during the BUSY HOLIDAY SEASON no less. Bummer.

I mean big advertisers like:
Borders Books
CompUSA
Mercedes Benz
Toyota
American Express
History Channel
Albertsons

That must have hit the bottom line a bit. I heard of a liberal radio host that lost an advertiser and then lost her job. But we all know that right wing hate radio is very different from other radio, they have a long tradition of propping up money losing hosts even though they profess to love the invisible hand of the market in this great capitalist society. Heck, Rush Limbaugh lost money for years, The Washington Times -- the GOP house organ owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, still loses millions every year. It really isn't about the all mighty market, it's about making sure attack poodles are in place to serve the big right wing "media" picture. Let's just hope that Farid doesn't listen to the show or look at the books.

Because really, Farid Sulman is a busy, busy man now. He probably never heard about the comments on December 15, 2005 6:14 pm PST during Brian Sussman's 6 to 8 PM drive time show where Mr. Sussman talked about cutting off someones penis.

"I would say first we cut off your finger next we go for your penis, what do you want? What do you want? Okay? I'll tell you what, the guy says nothing we cut off the finger first. Just the tip of the finger, that's all. I got news for you he's going to start talking quickly, we can't do any of that now."

(20 second Windows media sound clip here)

And I'm sure he won't notice when the FCC indecency complains come in, because as we all know, broadcast radio has different rules for speech than someone standing on the corner in front of the Federal Building expressing his opinion. Radio is regulated. And our good friends at the American Family Association have pushed harder and harder to ensure that indecent speech between 6 am and 10 pm is punished with big fines. Of course if H.R. 310, the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005, were to pass and trigger the new proposed FCC indecency or obscenity fines of $500,000 per instance someone at Citadel Communications might notice.

Farid might not worry about what the children hear, but a $500,000 fine just doesn't look good to the stock holders especially if the fines aren't balanced out by revenue from advertisers.

Some say that radio companies are amoral when it comes to issues, but as a public corporation when the bottom line is threatened, they act.

The people at Citadel might just be tough as nails professional folks who don't appreciate sloppiness. For example, they know they can swear all they want in their office, but as owners of lots of radio stations they know that obscenity is never allowed on the radio. Nothing personal, it's just business. They know there are special tools on radio that are suppose to protect little children's ears from being burned.

So when they hear swearing going out over the air on one of their broadcast stations they might think first of how the sloppy team can be more professional and then maybe they worry about of the huge fine.

Click here or on the carton of hate to hear the 7:43 pm swear word Mr. Sussman uttered in anger on Feb, 7 2006 - Clip is in Windows Media Audio and runs 14 seconds (Not Safe For Radio)

Now to me this obscenity seems slight, but then I'm not the one who wrote the rules for radio and I'm not the one pushing for stiffer fines. It's the rapture right wing Christians who want to impose their morality. I don't think it will be a multiple million dollar Howard Stern size fine that the Christian Right has been begging the FCC for. How ironic if the fine would be used on one of the Christian Right's own? It's one of those stories of blow-back and unintended consequences that the traditional media just love to cover.

But I doubt anything will happen. If Disney owned ABC decided to just absorb the loss of seven major national advertisers instead of dealing with a offensive broadcaster's comments, I doubt Citadel will do anything different. So rest easy KSFO employees as you meet your new boss he'll probably be the same as your old boss. (Then again, maybe not...)