Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Email Filters at ProFlowers have Higher Standards than KSFO Radio Hosts

Mark Sottosanti, Senior Vice President of New Business Initiatives and Marketing,
Provide Commerce (parent company for ProFlowers)

Dear Mark:

You probably don't want to hear that KSFO host Lee Rodgers describes waterboarding as nothing more than "dipping testicles in a basin of cool water." right before he reads your ProFlowers commercials. (audio wma MP3 )

And, because of your Provide Commerce spam filters, you won't. My email to you yesterday contained so many foul words said by the hosts of KSFO it never made it to you or your colleagues. It's kind of ironic that your email filters have higher standards that the radio hosts at KSFO.

You are an extremely technical company, I'm impressed by all the advanced technical degrees within your management team, you clearly WANT data, you want to know how your brand is being enhanced or tainted as it meets the great wide world, but you probably never anticipated that some radio hosts are so disgusting in their comments that an attempt to alert you would be thwarted by a simple Spam Assassin language setting.

It's hard to know if the filter was triggered by the words, testicles, penis or anal sex. It might have been triggered by too many links. The links are to document the host's actual words so that you will be convinced that I'm not making any of this up.

The people at Citadel Broadcasting, (KSFOs parent company) are relieved that you couldn't read the email. This gives them time to create their excuses and attempt to demonstrate how they sternly chastised the offending hosts. What you don't know is that any "chastising" is nothing more than a winking memo saying, "Try not to do it again. :-) Mickey."

They know you are too busy to follow up and keep track of the new horrific comments the hosts make. They certainly aren't going to tell you. Is your ad rep going to tell you and lose a commission on a package? They have a vested interest in keeping you in the dark. They don't care if your ad comes up at the tail end of "Testicle Talk with Lee and OV!"

Yesterday I sent you audio clips from three years ago showing KSFO host's love of gruesome torture. I linked to clips from two years ago where they didn't apology and clips from last week showing them laughing about torture. If you cared to listen just this morning at 6:37 am Lee Rodgers comes out again in favor of torture. (KSFO archive link)

Now I could spend some time pointing out all the logical fallacies, straw men and out of date information Rodgers uses to make his case, but that's really not the point. The point is that testicle and torture talk is mainstay of his program.

Would it help you to hear some more audio clips? How about this joke suggesting a former KGO host be castrated and his testicle sack be used as a tobacco pouch? Now imagine that conversation ending with, "brought to you by the florists at ProFlowers." (audio Rogers, "OV" aka Tom Benner).

When Rodgers isn't calling the former governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, a bitch, auto executives whores or talking about the penis size of pirates, he is calling for the death of his political opponents on broadcast radio. ( audio linkWMA) (audio link MP3)

His latest gambit is to tell advertisers what kind of ads they CAN NOT run on his program. I hope you don't want to run "green" ads on KSFO.

"If any business advertises anything green I'll never buy their product or services." -Lee Rodgers, KSFO/ABC Radio/Citadel Broadcasting. 4-24-2009 6:07 am
Melanie Morgan chimes in, "Boycott green!" (audio link wma audio link MP3)

(I wonder if that applies to the green plants you offer. Looks like you might not have his business in the future.)

Rodgers and Brian Sussman aren't going to change their views or what they say on commercially supported broadcast radio. KSFO management has shown time and time again that there isn't anything their hosts can say that is bad enough to warrant correction because otherwise they would be seen as "wussies" by Lee Rodgers, the most powerful man in radio. (Audio link wma)

I guess KSFO management is happy to lose advertiser after advertiser rather than be seen as a wussies. I suppose there is always another advertiser who wants to hang with the tough talkers. Some men will do anything to avoid been seen as a wussy. Torture! Kill! Insult advertisers! Lose millions! Lay off support personal! Just Don't Call Me a Wussy!

If you do decided to leave, please don't feel bad, KSFO will simply find another advertiser who hasn't heard the stories or believes the ad rep who says, "Oh, they aren't like that any more." Who are you going to believe, them or your lying ears?

LLAP (Live Long and Prosper)
Spocko

3 Comments:

Blogger willf said...

Damn Spocko, that's a nice letter.

11:13 PM  
Blogger Acedog said...

As always, another fine commentary/letter.

I invite you to check out my posting of today( 5/1/09)
at http://acedogsscribblesandbits.blogspot.com/

7:06 PM  
Blogger s9 said...

I didn't use any profanity or harsh language at all in my last message to them. I received no response.

11:38 AM  

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