Playing the piano for Don Imus

Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Staples and American Express reportedly are dropping their ads from Don Imus’ radio show, outraged that his outrageousness has offended a customer base they seek to target. Do you suppose for all the years they had been subsidizing Imus’ brand of misogynous insult they had somehow mistaken it for the Prairie Home Companion?

Imus’ description of the Rutgers women’s basketball team was racist and sexist. It was also pretty typically Imus. Check out the op-ed column by Gwen Ifill in Tuesday’s New York Times.

Margaret McGurk’s well-done piece in Wednesday’s Enquirer about what pushes the content on talk radio also offered plenty of insight into how somebody like Don Imus gets to be somebody like Don Imus. I usually don’t agree with what Bill Cunningham has to say, but his quote about the piano player not knowing what’s going on upstairs in the bawdy house perfectly describes the “outrage” over Imus now being expressed by sponsors and broadcast executives.

Actually, the sponsors and executives aren’t the only ones playing the piano. Those listening to such broadcasts also have their fingers on the keyboard. The listeners also are the best ones to deal with somebody like Imus. You want to control what comes out of the radio? Turn it off.