Getting fired isn’t so rare, especially in the churning world of broadcast media. But getting rehired by a media company that publicly apologizes for its flub is a singular career achievement.
“I want to speak to you about a mistake that ‘The Wolf’ made back on Aug. 6, 2012,” program director Mike Moore of Portland country music station KWJJ “The Wolf,” recently said on the air. On that date, minutes after they’d finished up that morning’s drive-time radio show, the station canned DJs and wits Mikel Chase and Amy Faust. The plan was to replace “The Mike and Amy Show,” a super-popular 13-year feature, with a successful syndicated show from Seattle.
Faust said she’d both halfway expected the pink slip and yet was “absolutely shocked” that corporate station managers based on the East Coast actually went through with it.
But something unexpected happened, Moore continued: “Almost immediately, many of you told us that we’d made a mistake. We received thousands of calls, Facebook posts, emails and even snail mail letters. The overwhelming sentiment was that you really missed Mike and Amy, and you wanted them to come back. You also wanted a local show.”
Therefore, he concluded: Mike and Amy are back. After an absence of nearly two years, the duo is now back in their old 5:30 to 10 a.m. weekday slot.
“They went on the air and said, ‘We made a mistake.’ To have corporate do that is something neither one of us could have predicted,” said Chase.
During their off-the-air stretch, Chase and Faust tried putting out a podcast and worked together for the quirky TV show “Portlandia,” Chase as an actor and Faust as a location manager. Faust also did some writing, some travelling and some “sitting on the couch” in genuine mourning, she said, because she’d loved working with her pal Chase and loved working in radio. Chase, meanwhile, accepted a DJ job in Raleigh, N.C.
Eventually, though, the station invited them back — and publicly called their firing a mistake.
“I’m not gonna lie. It’s a little satisfying,” Faust said.
It should be satisfying for fans in Clark County, too, she added, since they’ve always been “a huge part of the show. We’ve always paid as much attention to Washington as Oregon.”
The reunited duo is preparing a new radio segment that should appeal to Clark County listeners in particular. “Hero to Hero” will invite soldiers, first responders and other community heroes to phone in and describe their own personal heroes and inspirations. Then the show will try to contact those earlier heroes down and find out who inspired them. And so on.
“Clark County has a rich military and first responder history,” Chase said. “We want to help celebrate that.”
The Wolf is on the air at 99.5 FM and online at www.thewolfonline.com. The on-air request line is 503-733-WOLF (9653) or 866-239-WOLF (9653).
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