The Dump Button

When Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunked a few years ago at the Super Bowl, our then-company CEO reassured the Federal Communciations Commision that none of his CBS radio stations would ever violate moral standards because we all had 7 second delay units to catch the bad stuff. What he didn't know was that a large percentage of his stations did NOT have anything of the sort. We were one of the stations flying without a net. So right after that promise was made, a company mandate went out that we were not to have any live guests on our morning show until we put a delay system in place. It was a zero-tolerance policy, so every guest who stopped by, from the little ambassador for the March Of Dimes to the Mayor could not speak live, they had to be recorded in case they busted out some "F" bombs. And because so many radio stations ordered a delay device at once, it took a long 6 months to get the unit. When Saturday Night Live's Kevin Nealon came in, we had to start a song on the air, run over to our production room, record our bit with him, and then make it back in time to talk as the song ended. We then aired our canned (and rushed) interview with him in recorded form as he sat there. He must've thought we were nuts.

Fast forward to today, and I must admit the delay system is a wonderful thing. We went for a year without every needing to use it, but it seems like lately it's saved us more often. If a guest or caller says something we can't air on our family-oriented radio show, I hit the red "DUMP" button, and voila!...the last 4 seconds of audio evaporate.

Today we had Tracy Morgan in from NBC's "30 Rock", and even though Jay gave him the pre-segment pep talk about how we are PG-13 on the edgy scale, Tracy got a little carried away. I dumped him once early in the interview, and then again near the end when he forgot that the "B" word wasn't something moms want to hear when they're taking their kids to school. He seemed personally hurt when he saw I'd dumped him the 2nd time, but the delay affected him like a 4 second Taser, and he seemed to behave himself from then on.

I was thinking though how great it would be to have a personal dump button. Anytime anybody says or does anything they regret, they can pull it back! A lot of spouses wouldn't be dumped by their mates if they had the ability to dump themselves with their delay gizmo.

On further thought, we already do have a personal delay system. We just forget to hit the button sometimes. It's called a brain! Hopefully yours isn't on backorder.