Modified On May 15, 2007
…but only from their XM Radio gig.
Hmmm… Welcome to the upside down world of shock jockery!
They’ll continue, as usual, on their “tamer terrestrial radio program for CBS,” as it was described in this article from Associated Press.
“Comments made by Opie and Anthony on yesterday’s broadcast put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter,” Washington-based XM said in a statement. “The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them.”
XM is not subject to FCC regulations, but they still felt it necessary to punish them somehow– probably not so much for the incident itself, but for yesterday’s whining in which they “lamented the state of radio and what they perceived as excessive reactions to comments made by themselves and other radio disc jockeys.”
Freedom of speech issue? Not sure. Sports fans know that NBA players can’t go to the press after a game and say anything nasty about the refs or their officiating. They know that league rules proscribe such talk. Is that a curtailment of their freedom of speech? Yes and no. But it’s certainly nothing that anyone would seriously challenge. It’s quite possible that O & A wouldn’t have been punished at all had they not aired their dirty laundry on-air.