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October 16, 2006
69 Reasons Howard Stern ISN'T Going Back to Censored Radio
Our pals over at Tabloid Baby don't seem to be subscribers to Howard Stern over at Sirius, because for some reason they took the news that Stern will be offerring a free preview of his show via the Internet on 10/25 and 10/26, and a one cent special for his On Demand Howard TV channel as a sign that the King of All Media is interested in going back to the likes of KLSX where he was the ratings leader for many years.
What it is more likely is that Stern, who has been on satellite for ten months now, is shrewdly gearing up for the Christmas gift-giving season by giving millions of his fans who have not joined him on uncensored radio a taste of what they're missing. And, now that the Sirius streaming option is now available over the web, with no need to buy a radio, the company probably is giddy to show off the 75 cd-quality channels for free for two days.
Rumors that Stern wants to return to the FCC-controlled radio have been buzzing around the media, some say fueled by traditional radio who wants to throw a wet blanket on Stern's meteoric success on satellite. Regular radio has been hit hard by the rise in popularity of iPods, the lack of popular personalities on the AM and FM bands, and the fact that consumers are finding themselves buying and leasing new cars equipped with satellite radios as inexpensive options (radios with Sirius or XM usually cost less than $200).
Below we have listed our top twelve reasons that we think Stern will stay at Sirius, other than the fact that Stern continually says on the air how much he loves his new home, other than the fact that Stern has a half-billion dollar five-year contract, and other than the fact that his anger for traditional radio only increased during his final year when instead of Radio celebrating or honoring their most successful star, they only tried to insult his jump to satellite in interviews in the press and renaming some stations FreeFM.
1. Stern was #1 across the country for the better part of his 25-year career, he has nothing left to prove on old-fashioned radio.
2. The lack of fines that the FCC has doled out in the last year is proof that the government agency had an agenda against Stern, which is one reason they fined him for discussing anal-oral sex and not Oprah.
3. For each of the last four quarters Stern's Sirius has signed up more subscribers than their competitor XM.
4. When Stern announced that he was going to leave censored radio about a year ago and move over to Sirius, the satellite company only had 600,000 subscribers, today it has over 5 million paying customers shelling out about $13 a month. Stern has said himself that leaving those loyal early-adopters would be a slap in the fact to them.
5. Howard Stern loves to say fuck, cunt, shit, piss, asshole, and cocksucker. As do many of his guests. Like LAist, he thinks adults should be allowed to speak like adults. There's no way censored radio would ever allow adult language on the public airwaves, thus why would he ever allow himself to retreat to kiddie-speak?
6. Stern's newest favorite device is a female masturbation machine called The Sybian where porn stars, strippers, regular girls, and even a grandmother have straddled the vibration machine and moaned in ecstasy. How many millions of dollars in fines would the FCC fine Stern for that?
7. No one who replaced Stern's time slot has done anything in the ratings. David Lee Roth was fired, and Adam Carolla is one of the lowest-rated morning shows in LA, and because there are no other decent options on the FM dial in the morning NPR is seeing an increase in audience.
8. With 5 million subscribers paying $13 a month, Sirius is pulling in $720 million annually. If Stern didn't sign up one more person over the next five years, and those listeners who have already subscribed, stay, Sirius' gamble on the shock-jocker would have more than paid off. Therefore why would Sirius ever lose Stern, and why would Stern ever want to leave?
9. No radio or tv performer has ever gotten millions of people to switch over from free to pay in such a short period of time. Those who believe that Stern would want to go back to terrestrial radio to feed his ego know nothing about egos. What more could fuel one's ego than getting millions of people to pay for a radio, pay for a service, and keep that service? For 25 years Stern played the small game of traditional radio, he now seems to be winning the bigger game of converting people over to sat radio.
10. Howard Stern has two full channels on Sirius, filled with original programming that started off as 24 hours of farting, and now includes southern shocker Bubba The Love Sponge, and the best sports talk show host possibly ever Scott Ferrall
11. Stern takes Friday's off. He can talk for as long as he likes without breaking for commercial. He never has to worry about a nervous General Manager coming in to tell him to stop doing something. His rebroadcasts are never edited to appease a sensitive member of the audience. The pay-tv version of his show is never censored for broadcast. And he gets paid $100 million a year to feel up porn stars and giggle at dick jokes. What would terrestrial radio have to offer him other than headaches?
12. Stern continues to be the most searched-for radio personality on the web. Moving to satellite doesn't seem to affect his interest among web users, which is probably one reason the two-day Sirius online promotion will translate into new subscribers.
photo via HowardStern.com
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Stern on satellite is possibly the best and most "human" thing ever on air. To say that people no longer care about the show (like tabloid baby) is insane. The honesty, humanity, and of course humor of the Howard Stern show keeps me from being more productive on a daily basis - basically ruining my life. Oh well...
Tony, I hear you on Farrell, it's great to hear an honest sports show.
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FOS.
Opie & Anthony have now replaced Stern's show in many markets and are kicking ass. It will take time for them to grow to Stern's audience, but they clearly are "doing well" enough to interest CBS & others in adding more markets.
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O&A are failures, which is why they 1) tried to steal Stern's show 2) couldnt get any listeners on XM 3) retreated back to censored radio once they no longer had to compete with Stern.
it will take them forever to "grow to Stern's audience" since they will never be #1 in ny, chicago, or la (like stern was for years and years) since those cities know that theyre just Stern ripoff shows.
no one talks about O&A, and for good reason.
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Stern is brilliant, getting Stern on Sirius was brilliant - but what is Sirius trying to do beyond Stern? When I think about satellite radio the only thing I think about is Stern, what the hell else is out there, what are they promoting?
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Tony,
Your "69 reasons" was incredibly well written and said it all. Stern is doing his best radio ever as well as playing his old classic tapes. For a Stern fan this is heaven. For those who aren't Stern fans, there is tons of great music as well as other uncensored comedy,sports,politics, weather,traffic and coming in 2007 NASCAR.
O&A are losers who failed on XM and now have sold out and agreed to a watered down censored show for most of the day and then a shortened uncensored broadcast on XM. What a ripoff! Howard would never screw over his audience like that.
Long live Sirius. I'll never, ever go back to boring regular radio.
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Well said. Stern is the best thing to happen to radio ever, and his Sirius show is amazing - almost too much.
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No matter how many times we repeat the same story, people seem to ignore the bottom line:
WE NEVER SAID STERN WILL GIVE UP HIS SWEARY SHOW AND GO BACK TO FREE RADIO.
We have said all along HE WILL KEEP HIS SATELLITE SHOW but SYNDICATE PORTIONS OF IT TO FREE RADIO. You'll get a couple of hours of censored Howard in the morning, while the Sirius subscribers get it all.
Why? Because Howard is no longer a cultural influence, swear words or not. And when you have that much money and ego, you want to be important. Ask Rupert Murdoch.
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a&o did not replace howard stern, they replaced david lee roth
nobody paid $1.99 for a&o so they had to drop that idea
so far, in only 10 months, 5.1 million people are paying $13 per month for howard (they said he'd never get the 1 million needed to break even)
xm is so desperate, they had to put there "exclusive" content back on the free air waves. if i were an a&o xm customer, i'd be pissed but then again, i'd be too stupid to be pissed
"free fm" is so desperate, they had to let their competition, satelitte radio come on their air waves to do what exactly what they sued howard over. not only are they giving free daily advertising to the competition, but they are paying them on top of it. the blind leading the blind
howard goes on letterman and not only gets the top 10 preempted, but he gets the whole show, all 3 segments
a&o go on letterman (forced by CBS brass) and they bomb so bad, dave has to bring up howard to save the segment. howard gets a call asking if it's ok to put them on the air. not many people in the world would get a call like that
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no offense, tabloid baby, but that makes even less sense. Howard is kicking ass at Sirius, he has no reason to give it away for free on olde timey radio. and who wants to hear watered-down howard when you can get the real thing?
O&A had to retreat to regular radio because they sucked. plus since XM is partially owned by Clear Channel there was an outlet for their failure. Sirius has no censored radio stations out there to partner to.
so unless you have some solid facts that you can back your post up with you should just admit that you're speculating out of your ass. :)
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ALL HAIL THE KING!
Stern rules. Sirius is awsome. There's nothing I'd rather listen to, and at $13 a month, it is a STEAL.
I recently bought a scion with an sirius installed, and since the XB comes with a 6 speaker pioneer sound system, everything sounds fantastic.
shit. I should work for them motherfuckers, since I brag about their shit all the time. ha ha, maybe they'll pay me for saying the shit I already am here.
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Howard Stern was never #1 in Chicago. We have Steve Dahl.
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Sirius is crap. To attribute every single listener that has sirius to Stern is ridiculous. He doesn't care about his fans or anyone else besides himself. He wouldn't even go to his manager's dads funeral so that he can play polo in the hamptoms. Get with it people. O&A is fast growing, and if we're going by subscribers going specifically for one reason, then O&A still has more listeners then Howard, and O&A cares enough about its fans to not charge them to listen to their stuff. Howard Stern fans are a dieing breed and he is crashing and burning.
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Ba Ba Booey
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The NY station ratings fell this month. And all the other stations are bombing as well. OnA don't have enough time on this planet to match Howard's success. Even the biggest OnA fan has to admit that they will never match Howard's success. And OnA are now making their fans pay for 2 hours of radio. Soon they are only going to be doing 1 hour on XM and you dupes will have to pay full XM subscription for 1 hour of some naked fat chick crawling around on the studio floor.
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This is for l33t (post #12). Obviously you're a bozo O&A fan who's too stupid to get your facts straight.
1. Howard missed his producer's dad's funeral (not his manager)because his girlfriend broke her ankle an hour before the service and was in the emergency room (not because of a polo match). Howard was considerate enough to call and his producer understood the circumstances. No big deal except for desperate O&A fan's trying to dis Howard.
2.O&A DOES charge it's listeners on XM satellite radio. But they were a failure on XM and were forced to go back to censored radio with a watered down show that rips off the people who may have bought XM to get them uncensored.
3.Howard is far from crashing and burning on Sirius. As a matter of fact, Sirius has signed up more subscribers for 4 straight quarters. XM is shitting their pants. All those "dying breed" Stern fans are generating close to 700 million a year for Sirius and starting a revolution in radio just like cable TV did many years ago. XM, Free FM,and O&A are the losers for sure.
I can't wait for the day in the very near future when Sirius overtakes XM in subscribers. Howard announced on today's show that he will hold a "funeral" for XM and O&A. Now that will be some really fun radio! So I suggest you O&A bozos cancel XM, toss your terrestrial radios in the trash where they belong, and sign up for Sirius where the action really is!
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Photomaniac,
To answer each of your points...
1. SO what if she broke her ankle. Missing Gary's father's funeral is not acceptable. Gary has killed himself to become anything, and Howie should have been there to support someone that has given everything he has to insure Howie's success.
2. O&A doesn't charge its listeners. They used to, but that stopped in April of 2005. That was back when Stern (as he admitted) was doing subpar radio because of the FCC. If O&A were unsuccessful on XM why would they extend their contracts. O&A moving to Free FM was a great marketing ploy for XM. Opie and Anthony can now plug XM as well as do a compelling show.We XM listeners also get the Free FM show pre-dump and we get two to three hours of uncensored radio after they are done on Free FM.
3. If Howie still had passion to do radio you would get FRESH NEW shows on Friday. You would also get someone who does a radio show more than 35 weeks a year. With all of the vacation time that Howie takes off how do you not feel ripped off.
See Dummy. The O&A crew is passionate about doing radio. Howie is still doing the same stupid stuff that he did over the last ten years with the mindless strippers. Plus he gets to interview nobodies while Opie and Anthony interview people like Dane Cook, Ed Norton, and John Cena recently. Howie is dead.
LONG LIVE THE KINGS. UP IN THE RATINGS, AND DON'T HAVE TO COUNT ALL OF THE UNITS NOT ACTIVE IN CARS.
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Excuse me, but I think Howard has proven himself in just about every aspect of the.....
.....RAMONE!!!!....
This wig-wearing boob has about as much life left in him as Terry Schiavo!!!
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Baby Evil... you need a wakeup call. Check the recent ratings. FMQB, OnA's buttboys, won't even talk about it cuz they are dropping. They are going nowhere. Imus is dominating them. Howard had Cena on doing an UNCENCORED interview. They have to do 3 hours of safe radio with Tom on the button. They will NEVER come close to dominating morning radio like Howard did. They went from 10th to 12th on the web search list. Howard STILL dominates it by a huge margin. OnA are wannabees. You saw them on Letterman being treated like 10th class citizens. They were on so late in the show that they nearly got bumped. And the audience didn't give a crap about them until they mentioned Howard. And Opie looked like a friggin dead deer in headlights. Why was he even there? These guys don't have the charisma to do anything beyond a 3rd rate rip off of Howard's show. And you know that now that the ratings are flattening out they will get desperate like they always do and do some lame ass stunt that will get them fired. Stern fans will never give a couple of hacks that are trying to ride Stern's coattails, any success.
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Baby Devil- Your arguments are absurd.
1. A loved one in the emergency room is a totally acceptable reason for missing a funeral, and since it was fine with Gary it's totally none of your business.
2. Neither O&A or Howard charge for their individual shows. But both are on Satellite radio that charges a subscription fee. O&A briefly tried to charge a separate fee for their show but only about 35,000 people signed up. That was a total failure and pales against even the most conservative numbers attributed to Stern.Howard has no interest in putting any content on Free FM.He's been there and conquered that medium for many years. Any so called sub-par shows were do to being edited and chopped up like swiss cheese by censors-not any fault of his own.
I don't blame O&A for accepting that FM deal. It's works for them for where they are in their careers. But Howard is WAY above them. He has achieved more in terrestrial radio than O&A ever will and then signed the biggest contract in show business to do EXACTLY what he wants on Sirius.
3. Howard does 5-6 hours of awesome uncensored radio everday including many Fridays. When he does take a Friday off or goes on vacation they play the classic tapes from his career that even O&A admit was great stuff. Plus now those old tapes are even funnier because they are uncensored. Many new Stern fans have never heard that material and even the older Stern fans love hearing that classic material again uncensored.
The Stern show is as fresh as ever with plenty of new ideas and all of it runs 24 hours a day on two channels. If you miss something you can catch it later. It's awesome and blows away anything else on radio (satellite or terrestrial).
Stern has Artie Lange who is funnier than Dane Cook and Ed Norton combined. John Cena was recently on the Stern show as well. Notice that none of the O&A interviews is ever mentioned in the press. Stern's interviews have been quoted in the papers at least a half dozen times in just the past few months. O&A suck as interviewers.
Enjoy yourself with O&A-We don't need you. Our party is going just fine without you.
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No buzz on this in DC at all. I listened to Stern for years and I'll be interested to catch a sample.
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