MILLER TO LEAVE SPOT AT KSDO-FM

Randy Miller, the outspoken morning deejay on KSDO-FM (KS 103), may have talked his way out of a job.

His one-year contract with the Top 40 station won’t expire until May 1, but Miller will be leaving Friday for Atlanta, said Chris Conway, KS 103 general manager.

Though Miller, 27, insists that the primary reason for his departure is financial, station sources say the fact that he has continually drawn criticism for his irreverent on-air remarks also has a lot to do with it.

“Every time Randy opens his mouth, he gets in trouble,” said one source who asked that his name not be used. “And while station management has always stood by him, eventually he got fed up.”

During his first month here, Miller’s “Illegal Alien National Anthem” prompted a barrage of complaints from angered Latinos.

To the tune of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” Miller had sung, “They’ll be coming ‘cross the border/’Cause there ain’t no law and order/They’ll be coming ‘cross the border when they come.”

A short time later, Miller incurred the wrath of local gays when he remarked that one of the floats in the upcoming Gay Pride Parade should be “a 22-foot-tall milkman, with high heels, called the dairy queen.”

Miller then sent tempers flying in San Diego’s Chinese-American community when he invited listeners to call in with Chinese jokes.

When the local Chinese Friendship Assn. demanded an apology on the air, Miller made matters worse by announcing, with a mock-Chinese accent: “I’m solly. Velly, velly solly.”

“The whole reason why KSDO hired me in the first place was to be controversial, to stay on top of things that are topical,” Miller said. “And sometimes when you do that, you’re going to offend people.

“But if people are offended, all they have to do is turn off the radio. There are plenty of other people out there who enjoy what I do and are entertained by it because they realize that I’m not trying to pick on any minority or group or person.

“I’m just trying to have some fun. And to have fun on the radio, you need to be a little outrageous.”

Conway agrees. “Randy’s act is to make fun of everyone,” Conway said. “He isn’t mean; he just laughs at the stereotypes like all of us do. And I see nothing wrong with that.”

But other local radio programmers say Miller’s brand of humor wouldn’t be welcome on their stations.

“You have to respect the intelligence of your listeners, and you don’t do that by taking pot shots at ethnic groups,” said Mark Larson of adult-contemporary (A/C) station KFMB-AM (760). “They (KS 103) might get some shock value out of it, but I don’t think that’s what this community is into.”

“We’re out to entertain and inform our listeners,” said Bobby Rich of A/C station KFMB-FM (B-100). “And you don’t have to be offensive to do that.”

Miller is not the only San Diego deejay whose on-air comments have gotten him in trouble, either with listeners or with station management.

Several weeks ago, Stacy Taylor was chastised by his boss, program director Jack Merker, for making too many off-color remarks about gays during his afternoon talk show on news/talk station KSDO-AM (1130).

A year earlier, KSDO talk-show host Dave Dawson (since departed) had been similarly rebuked for his repeated stabs at Jews.

Ted Edwards, program director of album-oriented rock (AOR) station KGB-FM (101.5), said he recently asked his morning team to drop their “Joke of the Day” because of listener complaints.

“Humor is very dangerous,” Edwards said. “What one person finds funny might offend the next person, and you never know when you’re going to push someone’s button.”

Jim LaMarca, who programs oldies station XTRA-AM (69 XTRA Gold), said one reason he fired deejay Chris Stone nearly two years ago was Stone’s refusal to stop telling drug jokes during his morning shift.

Even today, LaMarca added, he scolds his air staff “at least a couple of times a month” for making remarks, like sexual innuendoes, that he deems unfit for broadcast.

“I hire a lot of jocks from the Top 40 school, which holds that it’s OK to shock people to get their attention,” LaMarca said. “But on adult radio, there’s no room for cheap humor.”

One reason why programmers are so concerned about what their deejays say on the air is that, under Federal Communications Commission regulations, a station that broadcasts “any obscene, indecent, or profane language” could face criminal penalties--and the possible yanking of its license.

But Ralph Blumberg, investigations supervisor for the FCC in Washington, said the rule is unenforceable because it fails to establish what is meant by “obscene, indecent, or profane.”

“I don’t know of any stations that have had their licenses revoked because of what was said on the air,” Blumberg said. “The way the rule is written, it’s hard to decide whether something is obscene or just not in good taste.

“We’re trying to come up with a better definition, but in the meantime there isn’t much we can do, short of urging listeners to complain directly to the stations.”