Radio silence

My plan for this week was to give you the lowdown on the latest ratings for Reno radio, but I’ve thought about it, and I could be asking for trouble, and therefore I’ve decided to make like a 13-year-old poodle with bad cataracts and go to sleep all curled up on a little square of carpet in front of the fireplace.

The problem is with The Big Company that compiles, prints and sells these doggone precious numbers. They get real bitchy when jaybirds like me publish ratings in newspapers that aren’t clients of The Company. I went ahead and tested the waters three years ago, printing some of those ratings.

I figured I could get away with it, since nobody at The Big Company gave a hoot about a little breach of copyright in market No. 131 (our ranking in the U.S. based on population). Right?

Wrong. Some dirtbag here in Reno working at a competing radio station ratted me out to The Big Company, and boy oh boy, T.B.C. wasted no time at all in whippin’ me upside the head with one ornery-ass piece of mail, a two-page letter of gray, grim humorlessness that haunted my head with visions of large, unruly legal fees. I remember it was very difficult to knock off a good nap that day.

So our legal team here at the News & Review fired off a return blast of pompous blunderbuss, with no holding back on the heaping helpings of gratuitous blowhardy bamboozlement. That, combined with my very Eddie Haskell-esque letter reeking of sincere apology and remorse, was the end of that. No litigation, no hassles. After all, we ARE market size 131. But the message had been clear: “We take this copyright stuff seriously, pal, and don’t think you’re so small that you fly under our radar. Dig?”

Yep. I dig. And I’m hoping at least a few of you still remember Eddie Haskell.

Anyway, I thought this year I had found a loophole that would allow me to print the latest radio ratings without stirring The Big Company’s wrath, but no. That loophole would have become a nifty little garrote. Nuts to any further napping woes.

But I will go ahead and pass along one tidbit that I allegedly heard and which could very well be allegedly true, but then again, you never can be sure with all these leaks that are allegedly popping forth and sproinging about all over the place. You know, sometimes you don’t know which leak is oil and which leak is transmission fluid. All you know is you got a mess in your garage. Anyway, the alleged leaker done leaked to me that the current king of the dogpile in Reno Metro (which has become so swole up with humanoids that it’s become the 129th largest market in the United States!) … well, the alleged Big Dog in these parts is the station which is named after a common meteorological adjective.

And a word of warning to any dirty, lowdown scumbag finks out there: Don’t rat me out this time. If you do, I think you should know—the tailpipe of your vehicle will become the safe harbor of one well-placed, tightly packed russet potato.