Show Your Shutdown Solidarity
• Triple A WRNR/Annapolis, MD, owned by Steve Kingston‘s Empire Broadcasting, made the bold decision to take a stand on the side of the thousands of furloughed federal workers living in its listening area.
To that end, the station issued the following statement that read, “Outraged by the dire financial ramifications caused by the shutdown of the United States Government and its effect on the families of thousands of federal workers in its’ listening area, today WRNR-FM announced its intention to relieve its employees of the responsibility of reporting to work. This action “could last months, or even years,” according to WRNR Program Director, Bob Waugh, who commented, “I’m proud to own this action. We’ll keep the music coming, of course, but we’re going to set it on auto-pilot, until further notice.”
Furloughed employees who have been deemed “non-essential” include Waugh, Rob Timm, Carrie Neuman, Phil Harrell, Dave Ziemer, Paula Sangeleer, Mike Ondayko, Patrice McCarron, Pam Davis, Judy Buddensick, Bobby Cardoni, Artie Fufkin and “Bird” Duckett. The best part of the press release was the contact info, that read, “Don’t Bother, No One’s Here.”
• Meanwhile, the Dick Broadcasting cluster serving the Greenville-New Bern-Jacksonville, NC area swung into action to help out the families of the active duty Coast Guard members who are stationed at the local base and still on duty without pay.
RAMP spoke to Gina Gray, PD of Top 40 WERO (Bob 93.3), who explained, “We partnered with Carolinas Center For Surgery to request drop-off items like non-perishables, gas cards, toiletries, etc., to help these families until the shutdown ends. The info is posted on all station websites and social media.” The cluster also includes Active Rock WXQR (Rock 105.5) and Adult Hits simulcast WQSL/WQZL (92.3 & 101.1 The River).
Gray added, “We were going to do our own drive for donations but The Surgical Center is a client and already had the idea already in place, so we teamed up with them. The Coast Guard base is in our market and anything we could do to help was a no-brainer for us! We hope this can provide some relief for our Coasties and their families and we are extremely grateful for their services. We can always rely on our listeners to be there for each other and we thank them in advance for their donations in this effort.”
