Sarah and Vinnie Suspended: Hoax or the Real Thing?

This morning Sarah and Vinnie were suspiciously missing from the airwaves at Alice 97.3 in the San Francisco Bay Area. At approximately 9:50am, the general manager of Alice 97.3 issued an apology to those who were offended by what had been said on Friday's Sarah and Vinnie morning show. He promised to personally respond to all E-mails and phone calls sent in from angry fans, and said Sarah and Vinnie were suspended until Tuesday. I smell a rat.

On Friday's morning show, Vinnie allegedly said some kind of anti-gay slur, which caused angered fans to call in and complain by the thousands according to the general manager. Despite the supposed uproar, Sarah and Vinnie's Facebook page was completely silent on Friday. Fans didn't start writing on their wall until early this morning, wondering why the show wasn't on the air.

Californian morning shows have no shame when it comes to ratings and duping their listeners into believing something scandalous has happened when a DJ goes MIA, or when other noticeable changes take place.

In 2002, Vinnie was fired from the Alice morning show. On the listening end, [Insert threatening music here] Vinnie went missing. For the first couple of weeks, Sarah was at the helm of the drama saying no one had heard from Vinnie and they had no idea if he would be coming back to the show, or if he'd ever be seen again.

As the weeks went by, Sarah and Hooman became more aloof, stating they were tired of his issues and shenanigans anyway, so good riddance. Sarah started acting like she was privy to why Vinnie left the show, but acted as if the reason was an internal, need-to-know matter. While this made for an interesting soap opera on the ride to work, many loyal listeners felt slighted. Did they think their listeners were stupid? Turns out Vinnie was fired for partying a little too hard.

Perhaps listeners in 2002 were more gullible, but regardless, the stunt pulled on Alice this morning failed miserably. This isn't 2002. This is the era of Twitter, Facebook, and other means of social networking. Word, especially of the anti-gay slur type would have spread like wildfire if so many people were actually E-mailing and calling the station.

So what really happened to Sarah and Vinnie? No one seems to know, which either means it didn't happen, or the only people offended were 80 year olds who weren't in the Twitter/Facebook loop. Do you think Sarah and Vinnie were suspended or was the dead air a ratings hoax to attract more listeners?

**Tuesday's update:
Sarah and Vinnie were back. They didn't mention what happened, and they were babbling more than usual, but in the end, their show was extended until 10:00am. To me this means Monday's dead air was nothing more than an office meeting to talk about new changes.