Contact and Broadcasting Standards
There were several controversies relating to material broadcast on Radio Contact and Contact 89FM during its existence.
Radio Contact's Morality, 1983[edit]
One of the first major controversies involving Contacts broadcasts occured in 1983, when two announcers violated the WSU's policies on racism and sexism. They told jokes that were deemed innapropriate, including statements such as "Time to get off your girlfriend and go back to sleep", and playing what was reported by Nexus as "deeply misogynistic 'comedies' as the Monty Python 'dagger up the clitoris' sketch". Nexus (July 20, 1983) reported the story under the heading "Radio Contact's Morality".
Songs with offensive language, 1997[edit]
By the 1990s, Contact 89FM played music with swearing (including NWA's "Fuck Tha Police", etc.) and such music was sometimes on the regular playlist.
In 1997, Contact successfully defended a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority about a song played on Hip Hop Impact (hosted by Omega B, longstanding host and mainstay of the Hamilton hip hop scene). The song was "Gangstas Make The World Go Round" by Westside Connection. The full text of the decision is here: [1].
In the weeks immediately after the complaint there was an informal attempt to limit songs containing offensive language. A couple of weeks later, however, "Fire Water Burn" was released by the Bloodhound Gang. The programme director, Scott Newth, relayed to the station manager (Heidi Erceg) that he believed he couldn't not playlist the song, and so the song was added and duly charted at number 1 in the Top 13 in the following week.
