Shock Jocks Ex-Communicated

Such is the example of the nationally syndicated radio duo known as Opie and Anthony, canned Thursday following an on-air stunt during which a couple supposedly had sex in Manhattan's revered St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The deejays, aka Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia, each earned a reported $4 million a year as cohosts of New York City's WNEW-FM afternoon drive-time Opie and Anthony Show.

But the gig is up, the feds are circling and outraged listeners are still fuming--because of an Opie and Anthony promotion that awarded prizes to people who had sex in risky locations.

The problems began August 15 when Brian Florence, 37, and Loretta Lynn Harper, 35, both from Virginia, took the deejays up on their offer--big time.

Police nabbed the couple for allegedly getting down and dirty in a vestibule just a few feet from worshippers inside St. Patrick's. Also arrested was show producer Paul Mercurio, 42, on charges of acting in concert with the couple by phoning in a play-by-play of the alleged, um, infiltration via his cell phone.

Florence and Harper face public lewdness and obscenity charges. Their attorney says they were merely simulating sex in the church.

The day after the sexcapades, August 16, WNEW apologized to listeners and promised an internal review of the matter but allowed Opie and Anthony to remain on the air.

By Monday, however, the station changed its tune, benching the team, and substituting Opie and Anthony reruns while it measured the fallout.

As it turned out, there was a lot to measure.

The Federal Communications Commission received hundreds of complaints by phone and email from ticked-off listeners. The carnal sin also moved the 350,000-member Catholic League to call for Opie and Anthony's removal, as well as the revocation of WNEW's FCC license.

The FCC launched a formal investigation into the sex stunt. At issue: whether the station has violated federal indecency laws forbidding the broadcast of offensive sexual or obscene material over the public airwaves.

Apparently responding to the heat of the inquiry, WNEW decided to ditch Opie and Anthony, despite the duo's high ratings and their status as the station's top money-makers.

"Based on recent events, The Opie and Anthony Show, has been canceled, and will be replaced by other programming beginning tomorrow," WNEW, a unit of Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting, announced in a brief statement on Thursday.

The station also placed its program director and general manager on suspension.

Reacting to news of the firing, Catholic League President William Donohue tells the New York Daily News he's satisfied. He says he's no longer looking to have WNEW's license pulled. He's just looking for change.

"I have been contacted by so many people--male, female, white, black, different religions, no religion--who told me they've had it [with suggestive radio stunts]," Donohue says in the Daily News. "I hope this will send a message to shock jocks across the country to clean up their act."

No comment yet from the defrocked deejays, previously fired from a Boston station in 1998 for an April Fool's Day joke gone too far. (They reported that Mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident.)

As for the infamous Opie and Anthony St. Patty's couple: Florence and Harper are expected back in court October 2. Fully clothed, hopefully.