Last week, there was a bit of a ripple involving local top 40 radio station KDWB and a parody song entitled "30 Hmongs in a House" done by the Dave Ryan Show's producer, Steve-O, set to the tune of Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven". The lyrics, while terribly offensive to some had me laughing when the song originally aired sometime during the week of March 21.
The song, supposedly suggested by a listener in some wacky morning radio bit they were doing between one of the eight songs they play over the course of four hours, poked fun at stereotypes of the Hmong population in the Twin Cities. The Dave Ryan Show has a decent relationship with the Hmong population in the Twin Cities and they love to rib that population -- and it seems to be well received.
But after issuing an apology via the show's Facebook page due to a few persons of Hmong descent being offended, an advertiser has now stepped up and pulled their ads from KDWB. HealthPartners, who had been advertising their online clinic VirtuWell, on Friday yanked all advertising from the station indefinitely.
My advice is to get the hell over it. Because a few culturally sensitive people raised their voices over a song which was heard by about 10% of the entire metro population, the station will likely have to issue some sort of heartfelt apology and maybe even go as far as making a donation to some charity which supports the Hmong population (about 50,000 in the Twin Cities metro area) to appease HealthPartners.
It's just another example of advertisers, for better or worse, having far too much influence over the content of commercial media. I'm not a die-hard Dave Ryan fan but I do admit to listening to the mornng show on KDWB. I don't particularly care for the music but the show does have some comedic value to it. For once I'd like to see a media company thumb their nose at an advertiser who jumped ship due to "questionable content" and stand their ground. An apology, especially when the parody wasn't cruel at all, is all for show no matter what the circumstances are. Do stand-up comedians apologize to people who have been offended by something in their act? There's absolutely no reason to apologize for this parody either? After all, what other young-targeting radio station is HealthPartners going to run to in an effort to get the word out about VirtuWell -- 96.3 Now? Sure.
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