2011 Bee-otch of the Year

BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF T-SHIRT HELL AND MAKE SOME MONEY! DON'T FORGET TO "LIKE" BEE-OTCH OF THE DAY ON FACEBOOK!   ------------------- Chuck69.com presents... THE 2011 BEE-OTCH OF THE YEAR! Since 1999, Chuck69.com has prided itself on (dis)honoring those who made bad decisions and make people's lives miserable. Normally, we have you, the reader, vote for Bee-otch of the Year. However, since we now archive our Bee-otches on Blogspot, we can track viewers, pageviews and so forth. We're going to hand the great honor of Bee-otch of the Year to the most-read story from our site. Without further adieu... --- JANUARY: FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Late last year, a court in New York state ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to slam TV stations with fines for nudity after the agency handed over Notices of Apparent Liability to 45 ABC-TV stations over an old episode of NYPD Blue. In the episode, Charlotte Ross is totally naked, primarily showing her bare butt along with some sideboob and even the part of the pubis that you might be able to show on TV without truly scaring the censors. Since the show aired at 9 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones, it was during the FCC's so-called "safe harbor" zone, meaning that it aired during a time children were watching. However, the court ruled that the FCC doesn't have a real rule for nudity, and now, the FCC's indecency laws are under the Supreme Court microscope. FEBRUARY: THE CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS Earlier this year, the second-largest city in Michigan was in an uproar over a Newsweek article that called the city one of the ten "dying cities in America". In a decade, Grand Rapids lost 5% of its population, a ton of jobs and even an increase in crime. So, what does the city do? Simple: a LipDub video that was funded in part by Amway. Yet, the video didn't create jobs, or even stop Rodrick Dantzler's rampage through the city in July. MARCH: CITADEL BROADCASTING The now-former media giant was Bee-otched several times in March. The first time was for the revelation by former WMMQ 94.9 Lansing morning man Rich Michaels that the company was screwing him and other jocks over by forcing them into a non-compete so if they get fired, they wouldn't be able to make any money in their own hometown. Another time was for exploiting the death of high school basketball star Wes Leonard by airing his team's first game after his death, prompting high ad revenue and ratings for their WBBL and lastly, for the fact that their financial troubles prompted Cumulus Broadcasting to buy them out. Although Cumulus is nowhere near perfect, at least a lot of good has come out, such as the fact that Michaels - now Rich Minaya - is now handling afternoons on WIOD 610 in Miami and that Matt Hanlon didn't survive the merger. APRIL: WOOD-TV 8 One of the most-shocking stories that came out of the west Michigan media was the fact that longtime WOOD-TV 8 standby Susanne Geha was shown the door. Nobody knows the true story as to why WOOD-TV canned the legendary news diva after a combined over 30 years at the station (minus 1978-1983 when she was at WXYZ-TV Detroit), but some speculate that age and money played huge roles. Thankfully, Geha has somewhat landed on her feet, speaking at functions and occasionally appearing on crosstown WZZM-13. WOOD, however, is still #1 in the ratings, even with unlikable personalities like Terri The Whor-er, DeBoer. MAY: CLEAR CHANNEL The most-evil media company of them all was one sick little bitch in 2011. Not only did they fire hundreds of DJs for cheap satellite-fed programming, but they also played hardball with a small Detroit radio station. The station, 104.7 The Oasis was a small translator station that didn't even cover most of Detroit. However, CC got mad over the fact that the station did interfere with one of their stations in Toledo, Jurassic rock station WIOT. They cried to the FCC and won. Thankfully, the smooth jazz station's owner, Martz Communications, is planning to find another spot for The Oasis, which still broadcasts at 107.5 HD-2. JUNE: ROBERT SCHWANDER The most-controversial Bee-otch this year was that of 17-year-old Robert Schwander, the son of a sheriff's deputy in Traverse City, MI who killed innocent 16-year-old Carly Lewis. A troubled teen, Schwander was left homeless and lived in a makeshift shack in a gravel pit. Many of you felt that I was being too tough on Robert, now spending a 40-to-70-year jail term for Lewis' murder. But, a spade is a spade. JULY: BENJAMIN "RANDY MICHAELS" HOMEL The Summer of 2011 was the season the music died. The only full-service rock stations in New York and Chicago, WRXP and WKQX "Q101" respectively, both signed off and flipped to all-news because Homel started a company, Merlin Media that bought out both stations. Since then, both stations have sunk in the ratings and, well, Homel got busted for drunk driving. AUGUST: SIRIUS/XM The satellite radio giant had an iffy year in 2011. Of course, Howard Stern's suing them over back pay, but at the same time, they're spending millions to bring back Studio 54. They replaced the much-loved BBC Radio 1 channel with the Studio 54 channel, angering listeners. Even worse, they took off Radio 1 the same week riots erupted in England. So, instead of getting updates on the riots, we got to hear some pile of shit from the late great Sylvester only nine people care about. SEPTEMBER: DAFFNEY RINCHER Many of you readers were angered over this woman doing something so sick: stealing the dog of three teens with disabilities. Rincher was an aide to a family of 16-year-old triplets - two sons with MS and a daughter with scoliosis - in Long Island who noticed that their new Havanese puppy was stolen. Richer denied any wrong-doing, but when one of the kids saw that she was "dogsitting" on her Facebook status, the cops were called, and the dog was rescued. OCTOBER: MATT HANLON Some good news and bad news: the good news was that Matt Hanlon, the idiot responsible for screwing over Howard Stern and hard rock fans in Grand Rapids, was fired. When Cumulus and Citadel merged, Hanlon wasn't included in the package. Sadly, however, Townsquare, the owners of WGRD, WFGR and a few others, hired him and is now an ad man for the company. Pray that he doesn't weasel his way back into management. NOVEMBER: DON JULIO'S RESTAURANT The once-popular Grand Rapids Mexican eatery got thrown into a sea of controversy when its manager ordered a family with a service dog to move him to the lobby because it was shedding hair. The German Shepard, named Spruce services a Gulf War vet who suffers seizures and is trained to bark repeatedly if he collapsed. The manager was interviewed and stood by her decision to bar the dog from entering the restaurant. But, it was an overall bad decision: Don Julio's closed only weeks after the incident. DECEMBER: SANDY RICHARDS Sandy is the music teacher in Traverse City, MI who made headlines when she took out the word "gay" from "Deck the Halls" and replaced it with "bright" as in "don we now our bright apparel". True, it would stop a young kid from laughing, but it would also teach them that censorship is good. --- So, who am be de Bee-otch of the Year? Tune in Friday, 1/6/11 to find out! Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome! Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com ! Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!