Are You A SPERM?
John McMullen, former OutQ host and program director who left SIRIUS late last year, wrote a long, yet straightforward, post in the Backstage forums Saturday night about some of the things that happen behind the scenes at SIRIUS Headquarters. From homophobia to backstabbing and everything else in between, it leaves a fairly sour taste in our mouths.
One of the most interesting comments John mentioned was about what management thinks about listeners. His comments are in relation to the outcry there was when OutQ decided to fill the entire weekend with music(emphasis mine):
“I only mention this because I think people need an accurate understanding that the full weekend agenda of music was a creation against my extraordinary protests by Gorab and Coleman who insisted (contrary to thousands of listener e-mails I received) that people wanted to hear no talk on the weekends. But, this was to become standard operating practice at Sirius. Management on Talk and Music sides of the business regarded listeners as worthless SPERM (Self Proclaimed Experts of Radio & Music).”
It seems that to SIRIUS, at least the top brass, listeners don’t know what they want to hear. While, yes, it is true that they could never put in all of the suggestions they get due to the sheer number, to simply write all the suggestions off, even when they come in by the thousands as evidenced above, is simply being out of touch with your listener. To most veteran listeners, the concept of SIRIUS not turning much of an ear to the customer is nothing new, but the fact that there is a term for it is disgraceful and appalling. I hope that this destructive culture changes soon, and for the better.
On the flip side, maybe we are taking it the wrong way. Maybe the head honchos are all big Monty Python fans.