TANGENT SUNSET CLUELESS RADIO by Alex Cosper

Clueless Radio is a fictional story about an alternative station failing in ratings and sales but experiences occasional flashes of success. At one time the station had great ratings and dominated the market but a new regime with a new focus has erased the station's influence in the market. What could they be doing that is so wrong?

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Chapter 2: "Heads Roll" (part a)

Tim Jarz had no idea he had reached the end of the line. He thought his relationship with upper management was just fine, even though he thought everyone above him was a moron. He even told people on the staff he thought Heichman, Paneela and the CEO/President of Consolidated Broadcasting all had zero knowledge about how to run a radio station. "But then," he joked, "that's why we're called Clueless." Jarz never even considered that he would take the fall for the bad book since Heichman and Paneela were calling the shots.

As far as music clocks, how liners were structured, stopset placement and promotions, that was all Paneela. Jarz, however, was allowed to work within the framework of Paneela's formatics. Jarz had picked most of the new music until ratings day when Paneela took control of the adds. For Jarz, most of his freedom concerned the air talent, who he hounded if they ever got too creative. He wanted the focus to be on his music selection, nothing else. To his frustation, Jarz wanted certain people gone but he didn't have the authority to hire or fire anyone on his own. That's where Heichman's influence came into play. The more Jarz analyzed the situation the more he theorized that the bad book had little to do with him tightening the structure a notch or picking the music. If he were allowed to program his way, Jarz believed, the station would be back to double digits.

Jarz started talking about the situation with midday host Jennifer after their crossover one morning. Jennifer was very attractive and sounded very cool on the air. She had the perfect amount of natural energy. Off the air she never got involved with office politics or ripping on upper management. She followed orders very closely. But now, here was Tim Jarz, the PD, trying to create dissention or maybe just trying to start his own little coalition.

"Yeah, we really blew it in that last book," Jarz told Jennifer, who didn't have to talk on the mike again for another fifteen minutes. The new slogan was "less talk, more Clueless music."

Jennifer responded, "Well, we just have to try harder. We'll be back. This station has a great heritage in the market."

"Yeah, but it's never going to get great ratings again if we keep doing what we're doing," Jarz said. "I mean the music was sounding pretty good already, and the jocks sound good, but now we're doing all this super weird stuff that doesn't get good ratings."

"Then why are we doing it?" she asked, still assuming Jarz was in charge of everything.

Jarz had to be careful here. He couldn't afford to let it get around that he really wasn't in control. But at the same time, he had to indicate that the bad book had nothing to do with him. "Well," Jarz said, "I can only take so much responsibilty for what we're doing. I'm really good with music - that's why I got into this business. But a lot of the other stuff...like I honestly think you and I would be a great morning team. But Heichman, for whatever reason likes Candy."

"Candy's cool," Jennifer inserted to push the conversation away from bashing a co-worker.

"Well Candy's cool, but we gotta think about ratings. The morning show still did okay because I kept the music rolling. We would actually be able to open it up more if I had a partner that knew more about what was going on and didn't sound so..."

Jennifer cut him off and tried to steer the conversation toward the new station promotion. "I'm sorry," she said, "I need to ask you something about this promotion we're doing. I know we're not giving anything away even though we're saying, 'listen for the Clueless alarm to go off for your chance to get rich.' Then we tell them when they hear the alarm to call Piazzi's Pizza and order a large pizza to go. What's the listener supposed to do then?"

"Nothing, that's it."

"So is it really a contest?"

"Nope," Jarz laughed. "That's another example of how we're wasting people's time. They may try to create the impression it's a contest, but it's really just an advertisement and nothing more."

"I don't get it," she said, now looking puzzled.

"I don't either," said Jarz. "That wasn't my call. Heichman made us put it on the air. The sales staff talked him into it. Nobody cares about that crap. I'm not seeing any money from it, it's hurting our ratings and it's just stupid."

Jennifer tried to change the subject again. "I have an idea for a good promotion. Let's do a private party at a hotel and do a trade for some rooms."

"Heichman stopped doing trades," Jarz countered, "unless it involves him."

At that point Jennifer wanted Jarz to leave so she could concentrate on her show. "I'm sorry, Tim. I need to study this promotion and figure out what I'm going to say."

"Alright," Jarz said. "Think about mornings, though. I can't make it happen right away but maybe after one more book. That'll give you time to prepare for it."

Jarz walked out of the control room and shut the door behind him. Jarz didn't know that Candy's intern Janie had been listening to the whole conversation while the door was open. Janie immediately called Candy to tell her what Jarz had said about her. Candy then immediately got on the phone to Heichman and complained. Within minutes Heichman was on the phone to Paneela, who was in the middle of trying to close a consulting deal with a big radio chain so that he wouldn't have to deal with Heichman anymore.

"Jeff, it's time to say bye-bye to Jarz," Heichman erupted.

"I thought you said the end of the month," Paneela responded on his cell phone, right in front of three radio executives.

"Let's just say I sped up the clock. I want Jarz out now because he's like a cancer. He's spreading negativity around the station about both you and me. We've got to nip this thing in the bud before it gets out of control. Ratings are one thing, but when I can't trust an employee, there's no second chances. This guy is a nut. First he comes in and delivers the station's worst book ever, then he tries to blame it on us."

"Alright, Wally," said Paneela, giving in, realizing he would be the hatchet man. "I can be in town tomorrow and take care of it."

"That's fine. But I don't want Jarz on the air tomorrow morning. As far as I'm concerned he's done," blasted Heichman, hanging up the phone. Paneela continued his conversation with the executives then they all went to dinner, drank wine and joked about what a crazy industry radio had become. It all looked really good for Paneela except for one thing. He forgot to call Jarz and tell him not to be on the air in the morning.

Later in the evening Heichman called Candy and said, "You don't have to worry about anything. I took care of Jarz. This is just between you and me. Jarz is out. You'll be doing the show solo starting tomorrow morning."

Candy was so excited she called Janie to tell her the news. "You promise not to tell anyone?" she asked cautiously.

"I promise," said Janie.

"Tim Jarz is gone," Candy giggled. "Thanks to your great detective work he got blown out today."

"Wow, that's great," said Janie. "I'm really happy for you. That guy was a dork. He really hurt the station. Now you're going to do really well."

"Thanks," said Candy, still amazed by the news.

When Janie got off the phone she was so excited she had to tell at least one other person. So she called her best friend Nancy, who was an intern at crosstown BEST HITS. The reason she had to tell Nancy was because she knew Nancy hated Jarz when they used to work together. Janie had been an intern at Clueless for a year now and still was not on the payroll. She didn't care about station loyalty. In fact, she hoped to start interning at BEST HITS soon. She wasn't trying to be a spy, she just didn't know better or care. Besides, Janie figured Nancy wouldn't tell anyone since she promised not to. But right after that call Nancy was on the phone to people at Steel 95, The Goldfish and even the night jock at Clueless, Python. Before the night was over dozens of players in the market found out Jarz was on his way out.

Jarz woke up at 4am, as usual, and got ready to go to work. Jarz loved listening to the overnight show because most of it was music except for occasional announcements by Plato. But as Jarz listened to the radio in his car, he was surpised to hear Plato talking so much. Then he started hearing songs that Jarz didn't even schedule. "Great," yelled Jarz. "Another idiot to worry about."

About a block before the station Jarz heard Plato stop the music and begin to joke about the morning show. "Don't fall in love with our Clueless morning show," laughed Plato. "It might suddenly change on you. Like you never know when an incidental character might be written out of the script. Ha ha."

"That's funny," Jarz thought, thinking Plato was ripping on Candy. He thought she had a totally annoying raspy voice and never understood why he wasn't allowed to blow her out. Still, though, Jarz did not feel good about Plato changing the music or talking about things besides the liners. Python had tipped Plato off that Jarz was getting blown out. Because Plato only made minimum wage, he never cared about getting fired. In fact, between 1am and 4am he knew that no one from the station listened to his show, so he frequently broke the format. Plato didn't know the management structure beyond the PD. All he knew was that Jarz was his supervisor. Because he thought Jarz had already been blown out and that now no one was in charge, Plato got wild the whole show.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Jarz as Plato pulled off his headphones after a long break.

"Tim, what are you doing here?" asked a shocked Plato.

"What do you mean? Look at the clock. It's 5:55. I'm about to go on. Why the hell were you screwing with the format?"

Just then Candy walked into the control room and freaked when she saw Jarz. "What are you doing here?" her voice quivered, thinking Jarz had been fired already and was about to go postal on everyone.

"Why do people keep asking me that stupid question?" Jarz popped. "Did you guys all take the wrong medication before you went to sleep last night? Come on, let's get ready. We're about to go on."

"But didn't...didn't," Candy didn't know how to say it. "Didn't someone tell you not to come in this morning?"

Tim's face soured as he finally began to sense that something wasn't quite right. "What, now you forgot that I'm the PD? I decide if I'm coming in or not. Now let's quit being weird and let's just do our show." Jarz hadn't even taken his ski jacket or stocking cap off yet, he just squeezed his head between a giant pair of old headphones and turned on the mike. Off the air he came off as a stuck-up rude person. On the air he was no different. Well, there was one little difference. Whenever he prepared for his show, he sounded normal. But because he had stayed up the night before listening to new music he hadn't gotten much sleep, so he started talking with a lispy siblance that sounded like he had marbles in his mouth. But then he'd immediately try to correct himself, calling even closer attention to the nuance.

"Good morning it's shix o'clock. Ha ha," he swallowed. It kind of felt embarrassing to open that way, but he tried to recover. "That's six o'clock." He hit an alarm clock sound effect. "Time to wake up folksh...folks. It's T-Tim and C-C-Candy. You have a choice. You can either wake up or..." It was getting deep into the break and Jarz forgot what he was going to say next so he just made something up off the top of his head. "...or we'll send someone over and crush your shhhhkull."

"Are you okay?" Plato asked in the background in a concerned tone.

"Ha ha," Jarz laughed. "We got some intern here that's trying to take over the show. Now be gone with you." He hit a toilet sound effect. But he realized the whole way it was a botched break that he would never save for an aircheck so he tried to get out of it by handing off to Candy. "Now here's your Clueless morning news."

But Candy was too horrified to even do the news. She felt betrayed. She told all her friends the night before that she had finally been given her own show. Now she was beginning to think that the joke was on her. She just nodded her head.

"What are you nodding your head for? Come on, give us the news." She just kept nodding her head. Then she bolted out of the room. "What a head case," laughed Jarz, remembering that he always felt good on the air when he ripped on her. "Well I guess we'll just let the intern do the news then..." Jarz nodded at Plato to encourage him to read the report. But Plato had never done the morning show before and deep down inside he knew he didn't have the talent to pull it off. Whenever Plato was pressured into something he tried to counter with his wise guy attitude.

"How 'bout no thanks?" Plato quipped as Jarz began to tingle with shock. Plato then took the bit in an even more ironic direction. "Looks like someone forgot to tell you you're toast," Plato joked as he started to laugh at himself. "Get it? Toast? That goes good with breakfast. You know what else goes good with breakfast? Fruit and flakes. You're already the fruit but I guess the flakes are missing because they forgot to tell you that you've been canned, just like canned fruit."

Jarz had never heard anyone talk to him this way, especially on the air. He didn't know what Plato was talking about, it just sounded like offensive psychobabble. Jarz took it personally. No one ever knew what to think of Plato's dry sense of humor. Jarz needed a quick comeback but all he could think of was, "alright young man, go to your room and don't come out ever again you little shmuckeroo. Just when I think I've met the dumbest person on earth, I run into someone even dumber. What's this world coming to? Now go on, get out of here, I'll do the show by myself this morning. Oh and by the way, you're fired. Ha ha, see what happens when you talk to your boss that way? After all, I am the Program Director of this radio station..." Jarz started to feel like he was in the groove. It felt good, so instead of hitting the next song, he decided to keep talking and put live callers on the air, just to prove he could handle the pressure of live radio.

"Okay, let's go to da phones. Who's this?"

"It's Helen," said an elderly lady. "Did I win?"

Tim's voice suddenly sounded nervous. "What are you supposed to win?"

"I thought you were giving away a fish tank."

"Well you must be crazy because what kind of station would be giving away a fish tank?"

"Well isn't this THE GOLDFISH?" the mistaken listener asked. Jarz was dumb-founded. He actually let someone mention the competition on his show. But he knew he couldn't just freak and go into a song.

"No, it's not. In fact I don't believe that such a radio station exists, but then again I only listen to one station and that's Clueless."

"Oh," the old lady laughed. "I got you mixed up with that other station. You guys sound the same except I think they play better music."

"Go to hell, lady," Jarz snapped half-seriously. "Let's see if we can find someone out there who didn't drop out of grade school. Clueless, who's this?"

"Goldfish rules, Clueless stinks," a voice said quickly as a nervous Jarz moved to the next line.

"Clueless, who's this?"

"Plato is that you?" a young girl asked.

"No, Plato doesn't work here anymore."

"That's sad."

"Why is that sad? I find it to be good news."

"Well Plato is the only one who takes my requests and he always talks with me on the phone for a really long time in the middle of the night."

Jarz had had enough. "Another Clueless listener having a Clueless attack," Jarz closed as he finally hit the next song. He yanked off his headphones and rushed over to the aircheck machine to listen to the break. His brain told him that the whole bit sucked but his heart told him it might still be good since he did most of the talking. After hearing the uncharacteristically long break, though, Jarz hung his head finally reaching realization that the whole thing was just another throwaway. But instead of giving up on trying to be funny he felt he had to make a comeback on the next break.

Jarz thought about what to talk about for fifteen minutes but he couldn't come up with anything and he had ten seconds to think of something. With two seconds to go he decided to put more live callers on the air. Just then Heichman was waking up to the radio.

"Less talk, more Clueless music," he opened. "Now let's dive deeper into the collective unconsciousness of the Clueless audience. Who's there?"

"Uh...," said some scared little kid, "this is Randy."

"Randy where you callin' from, dude?"

"Uh...from home."

"Where's that?"

"Uh...it's near my school."

Jarz was annoyed so he just went to the next caller. "Clueless, are you awake yet?"

"Yeah, I'm awake," said some 18-24 female, "and I can't believe I got through. You guys never pick up the phone and when you do you never play my requests. You just play the same damned songs over and over and it makes me switch to Steel 95..."

Jarz cut her off, "that's why you don't really count. That's right. In society you don't really count because you're an idiot. Oh yeah, let's listen to a bunch of stoners talk about strip clubs. Clueless outrocks all those poser stations that talk down to their listeners. Now who else is stepping up to talk with me?"

"Yeah this is Burt. My friend wants to know why you guys suck."

Heichman was livid. First of all, why was Jarz doing a talk show on the air with live callers and not with Candy? Secondly, why was Jarz on the air at all when Paneela was supposed to have yanked him off the air already?

As Jarz finished the break he saw the hotline light up. It was either Heichman or Paneela and he didn't want to talk to either. But either way he still had to answer the phone.

"Hello?" Jarz answered with an abnormal politeness.

"What are you doing?" yelled Heichman. "You sound like a beginner. Why are you putting people on the air that are promoting our competitors? Are you working for another station?"

"No, I..."

"Didn't Paneela talk with you last night?"

"No, I haven't talked with him in a few days."

"You-you mean? Awww! I'm coming down there right now and you and I are going to have a talk. Where's Candy?"

I don't know," said Jarz, "she just walked off the show for no reason..." Jarz rambled for ten more seconds then he realized that Heichman had hung up on him. At this point he knew he was in trouble but he figured Candy was in bigger trouble.

Now Heichman was on the phone to Paneela, who lived an hour away. "Why didn't you pull Dorkus Dingbat off the air like I told you to?"

"O-o-o-Wally, I'm terribly sorry." Paneela was going through a twenty second freakout, but that was all the time he needed to formulate an excuse why he dropped the ball. "Wally, I got so caught up in the excitement of this new promotion I worked out with the labels. We're going to get a lot of great promotions this quarter."

"Well, now isn't that wonderful?" Heichman said sarcastically. "Now back to the subject. You're actually very fortunate that you live outside of this market and you can't hear what goes on in the morning here. Because if you did, it would probably make you very ill. This guy has never been good on the air and I have no idea why you put him on in the first place. He's not getting better, in fact he's getting worse. He's putting live callers on the air saying that 'Clueless sucks.' It's as if he's never been on the air before."

"Alright, alright, alright," said Paneela. "I'll be down as soon as poosible."

"That won't be necessary," said Heichman. "You didn't let me finish. I'm discontinuing your services until further notice. I can't let things get out of control here. And right now I have a major crisis on my hands."

Chapter 2 continued (part b)

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Note: due to space limitations Chapter 2: "Heads Roll" was broken into two pages (part a and part b).