Some say he was fired, some say he quit, either way John Mainelli no longer works at the NY Post after it was revealed that there may have been a conflict of intrest when he printed rumors about Howard Stern wanting to return to censored radio.
Howard Stern may be coming back to earth - on WPLJ or WABC. Radio insiders are reporting rampant rumors that the shock jock will "do an Opie & Anthony" and return to old-fashioned radio from the obscurity of satellite radio. - Mainelli, NY Post, 9/19
The only problem is Stern (pictured with girlfriend, model, Beth O.) has said over the last nine months that he loves satellite radio, loves the fact that when he signed a five year contract Sirius only had 600,000 listeners and now has over 4 milliion, and loves the fact that Sirius has begun to sell more radios each month than their competitor XM.Oh and there's the other problem that Mainelli is a radio consultant who has a business helping traditional radio stations become more profitable. When Stern raised questions about whether or not Mainelli and his clients would financially benefit from such rumor-based columns that contained no fact, the Post apparently asked their columnist to choose between writing about radio or consulting for radio stations.
What also came to light was Mainelli's primary source in the story was a columnist from Inside Radio, a publication that is about old-fashioned radio and owned by Clear Channel who not only owns tons of radio stations, but also is an investor in XM.
So you have a writer who gets paid by traditional radio, sourcing another writer who gets paid by traditional radio conglomerate, spreading lies about a phenomenon happening on satellite radio. That was enough for the Post to ask their radio columnist of 8 years to choose which side of the fence he wanted to work for - radio or the press. Mainelli chose the former.
"I consider myself fired," Mainelli told Radar magazine. "I can't live on what I earn from the Post."
Earlier this week Mainelli infested Jeff Jarvis's Buzzmachine to defend himself, poorly and showed that he knows even less about Google Ads than he does about conflict of interest or Howard Stern.
Yesterday Stern appeared on KLSX's Adam Carolla's show, the morning program that replaced the Howard Stern Show. Since Stern left the LA station Carolla has yet to find an audience and spent several months in dead last place. Yesterday the former Loveline co-host joked that his 0 share has now doubled.
While Stern held the same timeslot on KLSX he was #1 in LA for many years.
