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Morning
talk show spits out gibes about gays
By Jeff
Carlton
Albuquerque Tribune
For
complete quotes from the show, CLICK
HERE
 Frequent
insensitive remarks about gays made by Albuquerque sports talk show
host Dennis Glasgow are receiving scrutiny from his new boss.
Pete Benedetti, general manager of
Citadel Southwest, which operates nine radio stations in Albuquerque,
said he will take a closer look at Glasgow, who has peppered "The
Morning Show With Dennis Glasgow" with jokes and asides about
gays.
"The Morning Show" airs on KNML-AM (610) weekdays from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m.
The Tribune this week provided Bob
Proffitt, chief operating officer of Citadel
Broadcasting, based in
Las Vegas, Nev., with printed excerpts from Glasgow's shows that aired
the week of July 8.
Citadel owns and operates 138 FM and 61
AM stations in 41 markets across the country.
The excerpts "made me cringe a
bit," Proffitt said, "but I am not going to take an edited
version of a week's worth of shows and go crazy over it. We've never
been out to offend anybody. We don't condone offending anybody."
Proffitt passed the excerpts to
Benedetti, who started his job last week. Benedetti said earlier this
week that he had not listened to the show but that he would do so.
"If we determine that it is not in
the best interests of getting listeners, improving ratings and
community standards, we'll talk to the guys about it," Benedetti
said. The show's co-host is Ian Martin.
Glasgow, 37, is program director for
KNML and has been host of "The Morning Show" since 1999. He
came to Albuquerque in 1996 as the radio play-by-play man for the New
Mexico Scorpions hockey team.
According to the Arbitron report of
July 8, the most recent available, KNML has a 1.3 rating, making it
23rd among Albuquerque's radio stations in terms of listeners. The
station calls itself "The Sports Animal."
During the week of July 8, Glasgow and
Martin talked about gays on at least 14 occasions, with Glasgow
usually referring to "fat, gay homos" or "fat, gay
men." The co-hosts made references to homosexuality on each of
the five days.
Two pre-taped promotional announcements
for the show that ran during commercial breaks throughout the week
also unfavorably mentioned gays. One of them implied that a host of
another Albuquerque sports radio show is homosexual.
During a commercial break on July 9, a
promo said: "Don't like `The Morning Show?' Turn the dial and
(bleeped out) yourself." When the show returned from that break,
Glasgow began yelling.
"I want all of you fat, gay homos
who don't like the show to take the advice (of the promo)," he
said. "If you're fat or you're gay or both, don't listen."
Later in that same show, Glasgow
requested that listeners calling in to play "Trivial Pursuit
Tuesdays" identify their sexual orientation. When callers didn't,
he hung up on them.
Friday's show included a call-in game
called "Name That Tune: The Gay '80s." Glasgow again asked
callers to identify their sexual orientation, and when somebody
correctly named a song, Glasgow said, "We have a gay
winner."
Glasgow and Martin spent most of their
air time last week discussing issues in baseball, such as the All-Star
Game tie, steroids and Albuquerque's new Triple-A team. But other
topics mentioned during the week included flatulence, sex acts
involving urination, urinating in coffee and pornography.
Proffitt, the national executive for
Citadel, acknowledged that such remarks would be inappropriate on KKOB-AM
(770), another Citadel-owned Albuquerque station. KKOB has 50,000
watts of power, can be heard in 17 states and is the nation's
seventh-most powerful station.
"KOB is not a total sports station
that has that kind of mentality," Proffitt said. "That's not
the type of stuff for our (KKOB) target demographic, which tends to be
more of an adult audience oriented more toward issues. I don't think
that would be appropriate."
Proffitt said KNML, an all-sports
station heard statewide, is targeted at a young male audience.
Both Proffitt and Benedetti said
Glasgow was free to talk with The Tribune for this story. Glasgow
declined on Monday, saying "I would recommend you not write this
story" and later hanging up on the reporter. On Tuesday, The
Tribune left him a message, which he did not return. Martin also
declined to comment.
On KNML's Web site, Glasgow is quoted
discussing the goals of his show. "People want to laugh in the
morning," he says, "and if we make them chuckle a few times
. . . and give them an interesting interview or two, we've done our
job."
On Tuesday, the day after Glasgow
learned The Tribune was pursuing a story on his on-air remarks, the
show contained no homophobic comments. The first sentence Glasgow said
on the show was "Gays, lesbians and heterosexuals are welcome to
join us today."
Glasgow's remarks last week are
offensive, said Cyd Zeigler, who runs a Web site targeted at gay and
lesbian sports fans.
This form of homophobia is common in
sports radio, said Zeigler, president of Outsports.com, based in Los
Angeles. Zeigler has not listened to "The Morning Show," but
The Tribune read quotes to him over the telephone.
Zeigler suggested substituting racial
slurs for the word "homo" as a way of showing how Glasgow's
remarks wouldn't be tolerated if he targeted another group for
ridicule.
"The sports media does not want to
address homosexuality in a serious way," Zeigler said. "And
sports radio is the lowest common denominator in sports media.
"Why do they have to say
`homo'?" Zeigler continued. "Somebody listening to that
radio station is gay. Lots of people listening to it are gay. This
just sends them deeper into the closet and represses that sexuality
more and more."
Benedetti acknowledged that the
off-color excerpts concerned him but said people have different senses
of humor.
"There are all kinds of things
some people may find humorous that some people may not, that some
people find offensive that others may not," he said.
"We are certainly not out to
offend people. We also don't tell people what they can and cannot
discuss unless it becomes a major problem."
Tribune reporter Jeff Carlton has been
a guest host on "Prep Sports Weekly" on KNML three times. He
was paid for those appearances.
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