ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 3, 1997 TAG: 9704030033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE THE ROANOKE TIMES
In a station poll, about 70 percent of listeners were against suspension.
A pair of Roanoke disc jockeys had their April Fools' joke turned on them Wednesday when they were suspended from work without pay.
Listeners to WROV (96.3 FM and 1240 AM) Wednesday afternoon learned that Sam Giles and Mark Nelson, hosts of the afternoon "Chainsaw Circus" show, had been suspended by station manager Joe Conway.
In a taped announcement of the suspension, Conway said, "I realize many loyal listeners were inconvenienced and upset by the unnecessary prank" pulled off by the DJs the day before.
Giles and Nelson had been promoting a casting call for extras in a new movie sequel to 1988's "Bull Durham," a hit about a minor-league baseball team starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.
Even though the stunt had been revealed in The Roanoke Times as an April Fools' joke ahead of time, about 200 people showed up at Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium Tuesday afternoon expecting to try out as movie extras.
Some of them, as well as a flood of callers to the station on Wednesday, "were pretty put out," Conway said in an interview.
The DJs "overdid it a little bit," Conway said, including misleading the station and the ball team about how far they were going to carry the joke. "It didn't come off as represented.
"I was under the assumption they were going to pull the plug on it a little earlier than they did. ... They didn't know when was enough.
"We were catching so much flak, it was in our interest to make them pay the price [with the suspension] and bring them back in a couple of days."
He hopes that will "let people know we are sensitive to their concerns."
"They're disc jockeys. They thought what they were doing was funny. They saw the fun side, not the inconvenience to people."
In announcing the unpaid suspension, Conway also invited listeners to call in with their reactions to the decision.
Sentiment among those listeners was running about 70 percent against the decision to suspend the popular duo, Conway said.
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