KROQ Bounces Frazer Smith

LA Weekly, February 8, 1979

In case you hadn’t heard, Frazer Smith is no longer with KROQ. The radio station fired the popular disc jockey-comic last week for unflattering remarks he supposedly made about KROQ in New West magazine. The problem was, says Frazer, New West misquoted him. No, he didn’t say the station was small time. He said the station’s ad department was small time.

Whichever, Frazer is now out of a full-time gig and his rabid fans reportedly have been pelting KROQ with protests. No more outrageous news reports, no more off-the-wall commercials, no more leadership in the fight for a 250 mph speed limit. Frazer says it’s all okay, however, because he’s got his club appearances to fall back on and he’s talking to Paramount about a movie.


Webmaster comment: I could be misremembering this, but my recollection is that for several months prior to the publication of the New West article, KROQ had been running commercial free. If there was an ad department, it certainly didn’t have much to do during this period. Calling it “small time” would have been more a case of gross exaggeration, rather than one of denigration. There was a pervasive sense that the “disc jockeys” might not get paid on time, if at all, and when Frazer tried to make some money by booking his own ad (and pocketing the money himself, of course), he was smacked down by management, and forced to return the funds.

Because KROQ management wasn’t sharing any information at the time, there was rampant speculation about whether this commercial-free period was some sort of tax dodge, or a way of getting out of paying royalties on the music being played, or evidence that someone was trying to buy the station … you get the idea.

To be fair, though, Frazer was constantly running down radio in general and KROQ in specific. As the press clippings make clear, he envisioned himself as being a the next huge television star who was being cheated out of his due by petty nobodies, for no good reason whatsoever.

Backgrounder

Why me, why here, why now?

Firesign Theatre Frazer Smith Hollywood Niteshift Pat McCormick

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