Test...test...is this thing on? Where's my pills?

[Cameron]

Rush Limbaugh helped revive a nearly month-old story on Monday when he vehemently denied ever paying actors to pose as callers to his radio show.
The story, which was published on the website of Tablet magazine in mid-February, uncovered the existence of a service called Premiere On Call, which promised radio shows "voice talent to take/make your on-air calls, improvise your scenes or deliver your scripts. Using our simple online booking tool, specify the kind of voice you need, and we'll get your the right person fast."
Tablet noted that Premiere is the same company which syndicates many radio shows, including Glenn Beck's, Sean Hannity's and Limbaugh's. However, the magazine didn't claim that any of those hosts employed the service.
Limbaugh, though, took the article personally, even if he waited a long time to respond. On his radio show, he called Tablet a "radical, left-wing operation" and said that the implication of the article was "that this program is hiring actors to portray callers." This, he said repeatedly, was not true.
If somebody had told me we were going to do this, I would put the kibosh on this," he said. "There is no way we're going to pay people to pretend to be callers here. Nothing on this program is scripted...I have never heard of this. Nothing is staged on this program, ever."

...although... he said they didn't pay, "actors". Qualifying?
"Artfully-Screened" and "dump-buttoned" with a hang-up. Works too.

[AmpedNow]

With Rush's weekly reach being in the millions, I seriously doubt he would need to use fake phone callers... We can only imagine the number of lunatic callers that get screened out on a daily basis.

Those are the ones that give up and call Coast to Coast AM later that night.

[EZ103.3FM]

Hannity addressed the issue also. He and his producer denied ever using actors. They did say sometimes there are people who call in and end up not getting on the air that the producer calls back to be on at a later time.

I've heard some callers on WLW that could have been actors or at least 'staged calls'. I don't remember the topic but the host threw the topic out that didn't seem that controversial. The first caller gave a surprisingly extreme opinion that guaranteed a lot of calls in response.

[Bob Campbell]

Whoa....something on radio that's prepped in advanced?
You know, there are people in Charleston who still think the "vibrator call" was real.
Here's the deal. I can do a scripted, faked phone call and there's not a half dozen of you could tell.
Does Rush do it? Who knows. Would it be surprising? Not in the least.
It's a SHOW. Don't confuse it with reality.

[AmpedNow]

I've heard some callers on WLW that could have been actors or at least 'staged calls'. I don't remember the topic but the host threw the topic out that didn't seem that controversial. The first caller gave a surprisingly extreme opinion that guaranteed a lot of calls in response.

I usually peg a scripted call as one that seems out of place or unusually provocative from the "flow" of a show.

A host begins the hour with a topic of discussion... He lays the foundation and parameters of the topic and invites people to call in by repeating the number several times. Nobody calls. He spends a few more minutes giving examples and stories related to the topic. Invites people again to call in and gives the number. Nobody calls. It's :15 and almost time for the first break.

All at once, the line starts blinking...

"Look! It's the first caller of the hour! What do you have to say, sir?"

"Yes. I would like to say that all of the media except NPR are a bunch of Zionists and all of you Teabaggin' Jew lovers can go to Hell!"

(Doesn't matter what the topic is... This should do the trick).

"Woah now! What do you think? Give us a call! We'll get you on after the break!"

People get provoked and begin to call. This sets the tone for the rest of the hour.

Except I always thought the "caller" was a staffer down the hall or something. I didn't know there was a business behind this...

[EZ103.3FM]

...
Except I always thought the "caller" was a staffer down the hall or something. I didn't know there was a business behind this...

Thanks to CC and other staff-reducing operations, there is no staffer down the hall now. The business has filled that need, especially with voices that listerners won't recognize.

[Big Media]

Half the phoners you hear on the radio these days were canned months ago. I remember discussing the science with Jim Davis once before. He was doing an "all request" show with the phones off the hook (at the time, they had "f-ck off" switches that killed the lines). I asked him how he was playing phoners on the air with no phones. Turns out, he had a library of listener requests already canned in the server, that had been collected over the years. I believe he had at least one for every song in rotation.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

That was in the late 90s.

[Bob Campbell]

Half the phoners you hear on the radio these days were canned months ago. I remember discussing the science with Jim Davis once before. He was doing an "all request" show with the phones off the hook (at the time, they had "f-ck off" switches that killed the lines). I asked him how he was playing phoners on the air with no phones. Turns out, he had a library of listener requests already canned in the server, that had been collected over the years. I believe he had at least one for every song in rotation.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

That was in the late 90s.

Radio 101. Absolutely.