The BJ Shea Morning Experience
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| The BJ Shea Morning Experience | |
| Other names | The BJ Shea Experience (1999-2005) |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy talk radio |
| Running time | 5 hours (5am-10am) |
| Country |  United States |
| Languages | English |
| Home station | KISW 99.9 FM |
| Starring | BJ Shea Top Shelf Double R Reverend EnFuego |
| Producers | Steve the Producer |
| Recording studio | Seattle, Washington |
| Air dates | 1999 to Present |
| Opening theme | Collective Soul - Heavy |
| Website BJaDay.com |
|
 PodcastKISW-BJ Podcast |
|
The BJ Shea Morning Experience is a morning drive time radio show on 99.9 FM KISW in Seattle, Washington, owned by Entercom. The show airs Monday through Friday, 5:00 am - 10:00 am PST and is also available as a stream and a downloadable podcast from the station's official website.
Contents |
[edit] About the show
The show claims that its mission is "to help guys across the country reclaim their manhood." The mission is called "The Testicular Reclamation Project."
[edit] KQBZ era (1999-2005)
The BJ Shea Experience started as a two hour show on KQBZ "The Buzz" (100.7 FM), middays between syndicated shows by Kennedy and Tom Leykis.[1] The primary theme of the show is relationships, primarily from a male point of view, though it has tackled some highly controversial topics of sex, politics and religion.
In 2000, Shea was dismissed from the station due to controversial comments made on air.[2] Shea successfully appealed the decision in an arbitration hearing, overturning the dismissal.
In 2004, in the wake of the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, Shea used his show as a platform to speak out against the attempts to increase censorship on broadcasting.[3] "I think this is totally from the White House," said Shea. "I think that George Bush is trying to pander to the extreme Christian Coalition he thinks will back him in this election. I hope it's a huge failure and he gets kicked out of the White House."[3]
In May 2005, Entercom Seattle LLC, parent company of KQBZ, was sued by morning show host Robin Erickson of the Robin & Maynard Morning Show, on charges of gender discrimination and creating a hostile work environment, based upon remarks made during BJ Shea's show. Shea however was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
KQBZ's promotional slogan at the time was "Radio for Guys," and the suit contended that it was part of the problem. "The Shea program regularly features verbal attacks on women," the suit claimed. "These attacks repeatedly and crudely attack women in general and specifically in the workplace, claiming, among other assertions, that women are bad employees whose presence in the workplace is bad for men." The suit also claimed that Shea attacked Erickson on air on the basis of her gender and age, promoting The Howard Stern Show even though it ran during Robin & Maynard's time slot on KISW, (a station also owned by Entercom,) and criticized other female Entercom employees on the air.[4] Shea was disciplined for his on-air comments, though the suit contended that the punishment was not severe enough.
[edit] KISW era (2005-Present)
On November 30, 2005, KQBZ changed its format from FM Talk to Country music.[5] BJ Shea's show, newly rechristened as "The BJ Shea Morning Experience," would move to KISW on January 3 to fill the timeslot vacated by The Howard Stern Show's move to satellite radio.[6][7] No details were given as to the status of the Robin & Maynard show, or the ongoing litigation, except that the show would not be picked up by KISW.
The show has become one of the few shows across the United States to succeed in maintaining and growing its listenership after the departure of Howard Stern. In the ratings book that immediately succeeded the move, KISW and Shea's show both placed at or near the top in their target-demographic audience, primarily men 18 to 49[8]
[edit] Crew members
[edit] BJ Shea
Born September 1, 1960, in Boston, Massachusetts. Shea self-describes himself as a "proud sci-fi, baseball-loving, epicurean geek." He has worked in the radio industry for more than 20 years, and in many different formats, under the names "Bobby J. Shea" and "Bob Ravenous". His stage name "Shea" comes from his wife Kathy's maiden name, while his actual surname remains private.[9] He also has two children, Joey and Sarah.
A significant amount of the show's content involves BJ engaging in often tongue-and-cheek, explosive rants often covering perceived social injustices, gender equality issues, proper familial behavior and various sports/entertainment related themes. BJ also frequently derides his co-hosts and supporting cast for their perceived incompetence. However, BJ has essentially admitted that his short fuse with his co-hosts is at least somewhat shtick.
[edit] Double R
Rick Robertson, or "Double R", was the producer of the show during the KQBZ era but with the transition to KISW, Steve The Producer has taken over the show's production tasks. Double R portrays himself as a stoner, acting as a comic foil to BJ's "straight man." He typically does sports news and commentary. "Unbelievable," and "Are You Kidding Me?" have become comedic catch phrases for Double R, both in reference to a botched live analysis during a televised Seattle Seahawks post-game show in 2006. As later covered on the radio, Double R's teleprompter had failed and he essentially rambled his way through his game analysis by repeating that word and phrase ad nauseum. Since the post-game blooper, the sports segment usually opens with an audio clip of a famous athlete introducing Double R with something in the form of "If you want unbelievably bad sports reporting, go no further than Double R."
Double R is from Bellingham, Washington, and his association with that region of the state is one of many frequent points of conflict with himself and BJ. Double R has worked in Los Angeles, for the nationally syndicated "Ferrall on the Bench", and in New York for WFAN, WNEW, ESPN Radio, and WQHT ("Hot 97"). He has a wife (referred to as "Yoko Ono), and 2 sons, "Little Mick" and "Double B".
[edit] Top Shelf
Sound engineer for the show, with a hearty appreciation for alcohol, especially Crown Royal. He has a hyena laugh that has become his signature, and can unleash said laugh upon the slightest provocation. He graduated from Woodinville High School in Woodinville, Washington, and is the longest-standing Entercom employee on the show. Top Shelf's avid fandom of the Pittsburgh Steelers NFL franchise is a frequent point of derision, particularly during the NFL season. Additionally, several of Top Shelf's unsuccessful personal relationships have been fodder for the show.
[edit] Steve the Producer
Current producer for the show, and one of just two major crew members not to have come from the KQBZ show. Prior to his assignment, he produced "The Andy Savage Show." He is originally from New York City.
Steve the Producer is an avid music fan, and plays drums for a local Seattle band. Steve is also a dog owner, which has resulted in a running gag indicating Steve as a Zoophiliac who engages in sexual behavior with his dog, Lucy. Other recurring Steve the Producer content includes his girlfriend, known as "The Banshee". In addition to his production duties, Steve is usually tasked with giving an on-air rundown of current news items (during which he is referred to as Steve the news tool), providing introductions for show guests, and maintaining a daily blog of the show on the KISW website.
[edit] The Reverend En Fuego
Current call screener for the show, upholding the show's longstanding running gag of letting callers through that most call screeners would consider unqualified for air. Often he acts as the scapegoat when a call somehow fails to meet standards. The Reverend is also notorious for suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which enticed the show's hosts to play fart sound effect drops when the Reverend spoke. This was later changed to a duck's quacking sound as part of the Reverend's theme when the regular fart noises were deemed too offensive. His theme is background music similar to the type played during radio news bulletins, and is almost always played when he speaks on air, along with En Fuego bookending his statements with the phrases, "Well thanks, BJ," and "back to you". This is partly done as satire in line with BJ's usually tongue-in-cheek assertion that an "update from The Rev" will most likely not be newsworthy or relevant, although in many cases these updates are factual reports related to the topic at hand. He is known to be a regular player of World of Warcraft and avid fan of the zombie film genre.
[edit] Mono-Nick
Formerly known as "Nick the intern," Mono-nick became a fan favorite due to his under-enthusiastic deliveries during on air promotions and at KISW listener parties. Nick has found a voice on the show and is usually paired and berated with the Reverend En Fuego for doing incredibly monotonous promotional announcements. He is often chewed out by BJ for doing such deplorable work. His most noticeable screw up since becoming a part of the show was for a sports plug involving Mariner Edgar Martinez. The incident occurred due to it being Nick's first time recording one and he'd forgotten to set the audio correctly. Needless to say it helped cement itself into a few of "best-of" morning programs used when the group goes on vacation. However, before becoming a somewhat "regular" persona on the show Nick did work off-air as an intern and as BJ's personal assistant. His tasks included embarrassing moments like taking a bra back to a store since it did not fit BJ's wife correctly. When not working on the show Nick can be found playing games like Halo 3, MLB 2k8 and GTA IV on X-Box live and is a fan of progressive, alternative, and hard rock as well as the Beatles.
[edit] Other former crew members
Other crew members in the past from the KQBZ-FM years include:
- Arik (now with "Bob Rivers Morning Show" on KZOK-FM 102.5 in Seattle)
- Brad The Producer From Hell ("What a Dick!" was how he was also referred to before increased on-air studio censorship rules forced disuse of the term),
- Short Bus Sean
- "Mama's-Boy" Troy
- "That Guy" Ty Rosenow (Sports Desk from "The Ron & Don Morning Show")
- Gary (aka Intern Spock)
- Jarrod "That's Jarrod" (former show intern, who frequently served as call-screener so that Double-R could more-closely interact with BJ and Top Shelf; much to the chagrin of the show's host as Jarrod wasn't much better at it even though he claimed otherwise. When Jarrod would make a mistake, a short clip from a local Seattle jewelry store's commercial would be played on-air, hence "That's Jarrod".)
[edit] Fan communities
The show's website, http://www.bjaday.com, features content related to show, including the weekly Hot Shots provided by RadioVixens.
During the KQBZ era, a change in policy prevented hosts from promoting websites other than the station's own website. At the time, a fan community had already been established using the Yahoo! Groups service. BJ circumvented this restriction, by instructing listeners to send an E-Mail to a given address, which was to be responded with a "super-secret URL" to access the Yahoo! Group. Since that time, the community switched from a Yahoo! Group to a forum hosted at http://www.supersecreturl.com.
[edit] H-Hole Army
The H-Hole Army is the station's currently supported fan club. Members receive advance info on BJ Shea events, exclusive private parties with the BJ Shea Morning Experience, and special members only giveaways.
The group is a referral-based structure, with more benefits based upon the number of successful "recruits". Once a member joins, they start as a "Private" and receive a free BJ Shea dog tag in the mail. By recruiting people to join, members rise in rank, (Corporal, Sergeant, Colonel, etc.) and earn free stuff such as T-Shirts, hats and hoodies.
[edit] References
- ^ Virgin, Bill. "Bob Rivers Twists The Dial - Does It For A Shocking 10 Years", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1999-11-18. "BJ Shea has joined the station in the 1-3 pm shift, bumping the Howie Carr syndicated show. Shea most recently had been with a station in Rochester, NY."
- ^ Virgin, Bill. "Ghost Story Pays Tribute To 'Hump' Pilots", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2000-03-16. "Talk show host BJ Shea was fired Tuesday by KQBZ-FM because of remarks he made on his afternoon program last week."
- ^ a b Zahn, Theron. "What's Considered Indecent?", KOMO-TV, 2004-02-26.
- ^ Virgin, Bill (2005). KQBZ host sues station charging hostility. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
- ^ "Tom Leykis out, Gretchen Wilson in at 100.7 FM", The Seattle Times, 2005-12-01.
- ^ Virgin, Bill (2005). On Radio: BJ Shea gets Stern's KISW slot and The Buzz goes country. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
- ^ 100.7 KQBZ becomes "The Wolf" KKWF. FormatChange.com (2005). Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
- ^ Virgin, Bill (2005). On Radio: Loss of Howard Stern shows virtually no effect on KISW ratings. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
- ^ Wright, Sarah Anne. "Lip service: Kissing School teaches the art of the sublime smooch", The Seattle Times, 2003-08-01.
