April 1998 after an April Fools' Day prank by Hughes and Cumia claimed that Boston mayor Thomas Menino was killed in a car accident in Florida, accompanied by a Haitian prostitute. This included staged phone-in reports from two people claiming to be a policeman and news reporter, respectively. In reality, Menino was on a flight as the prank unfolded; when notified, he joked about "being back from the dead" but filed a complaint with the FCC over the hoax, saying WAAF "blatantly disregarded the personal and public turmoil they were causing my family and the city" after Hughes and Cumia jokingly offered on-air to allow themselves to be stockaded at Boston City Hall Plaza and pied by Menino. While the FCC took no action, the negative reaction caused American Radio Systems (which had purchased the station, along with its AM counterpart, for $24.8 million on August 1, 1996) to fire the duo and suspend Mittman for one month and Douglas for a week. Mittman later claimed he had no advance knowledge of the prank, having taken the day off to celebrate his 20th wedding anniversary. Both Hughes and Cumia signed a deal to host afternoons at WNEW-FM in New York City several weeks after the firing. As part of the deal, Hughes and Cumia frequently appeared on Nik Carter's afternoon program through phone-in appearances on co-owned WBCN, which later simulcast their WNEW-FM program beginning in August 2001. The Boston rock radio war WAAF's rivalry with WBCN continued to escalate throughout the late 1990s. In February 1997, both stations engaged in a war of words over who had an advance copy of the Aerosmith album Nine Lives first; WAAF offered to play it over the phone to anyone who would call in, while during a listening party for the CD, WBCN announcer Mark Parenteau ripped WAAF as "juvenile" and "trailer park trash bottom feeders". WZLX, co-owned with WBCN, wound up playing the album first over the air and received a cease and desist order. That May, WAAF and WFNX management both accused WBCN and program director Oedipus of directing local bands away from functions hosted by either station. In a Radio & Records op-ed, WAAF program director Dave Douglas saw WBCN's booking of Primus—a band WAAF had played more than any other station in the Boston market—for a festival as insulting, along with a concert performed by Tonic not sponsored by