Music

Radio DJ plays Wham!'s "Last Christmas" on repeat for two hours

by Jeremy Mersereau

Taking a page from the Alan Partridge playbook, an Austrian DJ by the name of Joe Kohlhofer barricaded himself inside the studio for his drive-time show at 8 a.m. and proceeded to play “Last Christmas” by Wham! on loop for two hours. His motivation? He felt that people weren’t sufficiently in the Christmas spirit.

The DJ’s co-host and producers could only watch in mock-horror as their listener base began to flood the station with phone calls, demanding to know what was going on. “We have simply no idea!” they probably said, in coy German, if it’s possible for the German language to sound coy.

The station (Antenne Kärnten) claims that Kohlhofer’s actions were totally unplanned, that Kohlhofer would face consequences, and that they had no prior knowledge of the morning zoo stunt, which seems unlikely. Unless I’ve been grossly misinformed about the industry, radio DJs who wish to remain employed typically don’t take over the airwaves for two hours to blare a terrible song non-stop. If only there was someone we could turn to, someone with great deductive acumen, who could get to the bottom of this.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: “The game’s afoot, Doctor! Ah, here we see a slickly-produced promotional video about the incident on the station’s official website… a video of this production quality simply could not be created without prior knowledge, wouldn’t you agree? A radio station might drum up a surge of listeners and media reportage with a manufactured stunt like this, my dear friend.” WATSON: “Remarkable, simply remarkable. No matter how many times I see you do it, Holmes, I’m simply flabbergasted.”