I got a couple of messages via the Contact Mike regarding yesterday's suspension of the Dean Blundell morning show on CFNY Edge 102. I guess my site is listed high on various searches for the station, Dean Blundell and Alan Cross. Remember, I did praise Dean's replacement when he went on holidays in December, more than once. I've never been a fan of the Dean Blundell morning show.
Yesterday, my new friend Alan Cross, Program Director at CFNY Edge 102, suspended Dean Blundell and his two cronies indefinitely as a result of guest Steve-O's antics on the show yesterday morning.
I'm hard on the FCC and their ridiculous rules that are suffocating Howard Stern's show in the United States, but I always praised Canadian air waves for giving Canadians credit for knowing how to turn the station or turn the radio off completely. I'm no longer sure we're any more progressive up here. As much as I dislike Dean Blundell as a radio host, his suspension is entirely unfair.
The story from the National Post claims Steve-O urinated on the studio floor and performed a gag he called Unwrapping the Mummy, using duct tape and his genitalia. This action got hosts Dean Blundell, Jason Barr and Todd Shapiro suspended without pay indefinitely. As I mentioned, it was an internal suspension. Alan Cross made the call, apparently a pre-emptive strike. I think it was way overboard.
Where do I begin? First of all, Steve-0 is famous for performing outlandish stunts. This is the guy who stapled his scrotum to his thigh. Unwrapping the Mummy is what you'd expect from him. Secondly, and most importantly, this is a radio show. Nobody can see the stunt. Doesn't it sound ludicrous that you can get suspended for urinating on the radio? If radio hosts are going to become 100% accountable for the actions and comments from their guests, nobody is safe. They may as well play wall to wall music... although I distinctly heard the S-word during a Sum41 song the other day, and it was the middle of the day. Where do we draw the line? What's happening to our society? Are we all to become Puritans? How fucking boring is that?
