Orlando Radio: Florida Man Radio Promises To Be Unfiltered

JVC Media launched  Florida Man Radio launched Monday afternoon on WDYZ 660 AM and W288CJ 105.5 FM.

“The point is the city of Orlando has a choice in talk radio,” PM host Shannon Burke told The Orlando Sentinel. “I’m talking about real, spoken word, just real talk radio,” he added, an obvious swipe at iHeartMedia's WTKS Real Radio 104.1, his former employer.

“We’re not going to be afraid to talk about anything,” said fellow host Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, who will handle morning drive. “I think this is going to be some of the most polarizing radio that Orlando has had in a long time.”

From the beginning, the content on Florida Man Radio was a freewheeling conversation about how the men might be portrayed. “Two scumbag radio hosts have moved back to the city to sully our streets,” Burke suggested.

“I had a great career in the city before I screwed it up,” Burke said. He shot his wife’s dog in April 2009 in what he said was an accident, and the bullet grazed his wife’s head. The wife and dog recovered, but Burke lost his job at Real Radio 104.1 and served about four months in the Seminole County Jail for the shooting.

Burke returns to Orlando following a few years at Atlanta’s NewsRadio WYAY 106.7, which recently changed formats to contemporary Christian music.  Burke, who has remarried, said he never left Orlando because his wife works here. Listeners can expect the personal from him.

Bubba and Burke

Burke told The Orlando Sentinel not a lot of companies would hire the two men. “The format is dangerous,” he said. “You either fluff it up and make it nice or you strangle it down till you don’t talk about certain topics because we don’t want to be on the news.”

Burke stressed his fears about censorship. “It’s not illegal to be politically incorrect yet,” he said. “I’ve always said at some point the First Amendment will go away when offending someone becomes a crime.”

Bubba was equally frank. “We’re in the business to offend some people. I think that’s what our mind set is,” said Bubba, who recently worked at WHBO-AM 1040 in Tampa.

“He’s the star of the station,” Bubba said of Burke. “They spent all their money on Shannon, then they pretty much got me for nothing.”