WEEI: Boston Sports Radio Station Orders Employee Sensitivity Training After Recent On-Air Controversies
Boston sports radio station WEEI is sending its on-air staff and full-time producers and perhaps all employees to mandatory, all-day sensitivity training on Friday after at least four high-profile advertisers pulled their commercials from the airwaves. The station is putting live programming on hold from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. while staffers attend the meeting.
In a statement, the station owned by Philadelphia-based Entercom explained (see tweet embedded below) that “WEEI is in the process of closely reevaluating our policies and procedures in an effort to ensure that our programming is never intolerant or harmful…”
[See Update below]
The advertiser boycott apparently stems from a failed attempt at humor by Christian Fauria (pictured above), the ex-New England Patriots tight end and co-host of Ordway, Merloni, & Fauria, alongside veteran broadcaster Glenn Ordway and former Boston Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni. On their midday show that airs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time, “Fauria imitated sports agent Don Yee on-air last week in an exaggerated, mocking Asian accent,” the Boston Herald reported.
Fauria was reacting to the revelation that Herald sports columnist Ron Borges was pranked or catfished via text messages from a caller to the station who goes by “Nick in Boston” pretending to be Yee, Patriots superstar QB Tom Brady’s agent. Borges was apparently fooled by Nick into publishing a fake scoop that has since been scrubbed from the Herald website and resulted in his suspension from the newspaper.
Fauria, who is separately known for making prank phone calls to other radio stations, was suspended by WEEI for five days and has apologized to Yee.
Advertisers such as the Massachusetts State Lottery, Massachusetts Health Connector, Comcast, and the City of Boston Credit Union are among those which have bailed on WEEI, at least temporarily, Boston.com noted. Boston Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy also chimed in that the team has “a growing level of concern,” “frustration and disappointment, and “displeasure” over the past year with controversial WEEI content, the Herald separately detailed. WEEI is the Red Sox’s longtime broadcast partner, with the current contract for airing the gamecasts running through 2023.
WEEI had to deal with another uproar last month when fill-in host Alex Reimer described Brady’s five-year-daughter as an “annoying little pissant” following her appearance on Brady’s Facebook reality series Tom vs. Time. The station put Reimer, who also writes (or wrote) for the WEEI website, on an indefinite suspension. During the NFL season, Brady does a news-making, weekly phone-interview on the Kirk & Callahan show, the top-rated morning drive program on WEEI, but cut a recent interview short because of the Reimer remark. Brady will apparently resume the gig in the fall, however.
Statement from WEEI: pic.twitter.com/cLykP0gtFB
— WEEI (@WEEI) February 14, 2018
Discussing the upcoming sensitivity training on his show this morning, the aforementioned Kirk Minihane seemed to imply that the Boston Globe was stirring up advertiser dissatisfaction with WEEI under the guise of reporting about it. In the way he described it, it almost sounded roughly like a so-called push poll during a political campaign when a polling company pretends to be conducting a public opinion survey but instead frames the questions to turn voters against one particular candidate.
The iconoclastic Minihane, who made national headlines in July 2014 when he was suspended for calling Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews a “gutless b***h,” also chided the Globe for having skeletons in its own closet. He also claimed that a lot of the criticism currently being leveled at the station consists of faux or pretend outrage.
Parenthetically, in July 2017, NFL wide receiver Brandon Marshall walked off the show and spilled a cup of coffee on their equipment at the Johnny Damon charity golf tournament at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Casino when the hosts asked him to explain some prior racially charged comments.
The highly competitive Kirk & Callahan 6 a.m.-10 a.m. shift, with co-host Gerry Callahan, has from time to time been the focus of controversy in the Boston media market. Currently and in its prior iterations as Dennis & Callahan, and then Dennis & Callahan with Minihane, “we talk about things that sport fans talk about” has been the guiding philosophy. Thus, the radio show often delves into edgy and hot-button political, cultural, or social issues in ways that often run counter to the liberal consensus in the Boston area.
— Mut at Night (@MutAtNightWEEI) December 27, 2017
Kirk & Callahan is the highest-rated radio show in Boston and beyond, and one of the most successful talk shows in the country. If management tells Kirk & Callahan and other personalities to tone it down, listeners may flee even if advertisers return. That said, it will be interesting to learn how the station plans to reevaluate its policies as a practical matter given this kind of economic tightrope. The midday show with Fauria and co. has also seen its rating soar with its equally freewheeling on-air dialogue.
Talkers Magazine publisher Michael Harrison offered this analysis of where things stand when entertainment clashes with economics.
“It’s a matter of the corporate world of broadcast media colliding with the politically incorrect culture of sports talk radio. I salute Entercom for the effort. However, sensitivity training for sports talk hosts is like teaching NFL players how to tackle gently.”
This story will be updated if or when WEEI itself and/or its on-air personalities publicly comment on what occurred at the sensitivity training and how that will affect the sports radio station’s content, or its existing talent roster, moving forward.
Update: In the aftermath of the sensitivity training ordered by Entercom executives, WEEI Mut at Night host Mike Mutnansky opined Friday night that he doubted the content of any of the station’s shows at their core would change moving forward. Characterizing it as an open, productive meeting and a good refresher, he also noted that there were intense, emotional exchanges between the hosts during the session. This is likely a reference to the principles of the often contentious morning show and the non-edgy, more generically sports-centric afternoon show. He also implied that management did not impose what might amount to a gag order on the participants. That would suggest the WEEI personalities will discuss on the air what occurred at the training session when the station’s normal schedule resumes on Monday.
