Howard Stern leaving public radio for Satellite.

[Admiral Ackbar]

I'm not a huge Howard Stern fan but I know a lot of people listen to him. I was flipping around on the radio while coming into work and turned on his show at the right moment I guess.

He's decided after his contract is up in 2005 to move to Sirus Satellite in 2006.

I just thought this was interesting industry news.

[LV-426RS]

I could be wrong but I thought I remember him saying he would never go that way.

Doesn't surprise me... he's changed a lot lately.

[Ikohn4ever]

yeah I was reading of the possibility, nothin decided yet, but I may be wrong

[Admiral Ackbar]

He announced he had already signed a contact with Sirus. After his current contract with Viacom/Infinity Broadcasting/Westinghouse/whatever their conglomerate is called is up in fifteen months he's moving to satellite.

[gshell]

yeah i'm listening to him right now and he's saying that now. i think satellite would be a great medium for stern but i don't know how willing people are to pay for something they normally get for free.

i have dishnet and sirius provides radio entertainment through their service and i have to admit it's really good and highly specialized. whatever you're into they got a station for you. however i'm not paying extra for that....i get it along with my dishnet service.

stern's numbers may go down but he may make more money because it would more or less be his satellite band from soup to nuts. very few middle men he would have to pay.

[daphatty]

Anyone else get the feeling that Howard is trying to become the Hugh Hefner of adult radio?

[Admiral Ackbar]

Heh, I was driving into work at 8:30 EST when he made his announcement and by 9:10 CNN already had a story up.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/06/news/newsmakers/stern_sirius/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Ikohn4ever]

I mean there is really a double standard in our media, he gets in trouble for talkin about anal sex, but Oprah is fine for doing the same thing. I think he just wants fair treatment, people need to stop controlling what people listen to because of their own morality

[Admiral Ackbar]

A local DJ in the morning loves to play that Oprah quote, "Do you know what 'tossing the salad' means?"

[PsyClerk]

Remember when he was funny?

Yeah, me neither.

[alongx]

Howard's been threatening to do this for the past year or so. He also's been saying since last Feb. that he expected to be off the air by now.

[Cornfedwb]

Remember when he was funny?

Yeah, me neither.

Well there was that one time.. wait, no, that was juvenile and inane too....

Stern isn't funny, isn't interesting.. if I want to be "shocked".. I'll look at zebra porn on the internet. Since he's on my local classic rock station in the morning, I'd love to see him go to satellite so I can listen to something halfway decent in the morning.

[Wshakspear]

crap....i was considering XM. Im not a big fan of Stern, but having his ugly ass on there WILL have an effect on everything from market leader to cost of service. This should get interesting.

[uesc]

i've had siruis for almost 2 years now, i've never listened to stern, but i can understand the move, cussing is allowed so he can get away with much more than on a public radio.

[redline]

Seems like he's been talking about jumping over to satellite radio for years now. I wish he'd go to Sirius though since I'm a Dish subscriber. Hopefully his show will continue to be shown on E!, but I'd really like to see it move to Cinemax or HBO.

[Ikohn4ever]

whos going to fight for 1st ammendment rights now that he doesnt have to worry about it?

[LV-426RS]

I wish he'd go to Sirius though since I'm a Dish subscriber.
He is.

[dtcarson]

I'm not a big fan of either of them, but XM has Opie and Anthony, who are apparently another big set of 'shock jocks' [they're the ones who had a live broadcast of a couple have sex in St Patricks Cathedral.]
Also not free, 2.99/month additional. But I guess O&A and Stern cost more than the music rights.
I've got XM Radio and love it. XM has deeper musical playlists, Sirius plays more of the 'hits'.
Go here for some comparison info http://xmorsirius.com/
and go here to see what's recently been played on XM.
http://xmfan.com/guide.php
You can check out a looped sample of many of Xm's channels on their website, and you can try Sirius over the web for free for 3 days, I believe.
Currently XM is the market leader, re: numbers of subscribers.
They're both slightly different, and they both beat the CRAP out of most AM/FM offerings.
I thought "Why would I pay for radio when I can get it free"....but there are some excellent reasons.
* XM has no commercials on music channels. That right there can give you up to 40% more music.
* Deeper playlists. You know those one-hit-wonders? XM plays their *other* songs. And when was the last time you heard 'Too Drunk to F***' on the radio?
* Not only is the quality good, but the quantity--XM has 68 commercialfree music channels. Between AM/FM, I can conceivably get at most 34 channels, which break down into one of the following: Sports talk; News talk; Religious music/talk; Country; Urban/hiphop; 1 classical station, 1 jazz station; 2 oldies; 1 'classic rock' station; 4 'new rock stations'. And each of them has a playlist of about 100 songs.
XM adds 30+ news, talk, entertainment channels to book, including America Left [including Air America] and America Right, and of course O&A [for an additional fee.]
You are paying for what you could get for 'free', but it's the difference between paying for cable/satellite and sticking with the four networks you can get with an antenna.

ANYway....I'm not surprised Stern went to Sirius; I'm not sure which came first, but XM and Sirius were both after a big name in shock talk, and both Stern and O&A will definitely take advantage of the freedom satellite radio offers.

[dtcarson]

whos going to fight for 1st ammendment rights now that he doesnt have to worry about it?

Actually his moving to satellite is a major use *of* his first amendment rights. The issue with being on public radio is that it is public, and thus regulated to an extent. Satellite radio is private bandwidth, where people have to actively seek it out to listen to it. It's sort of a political correctness thing [which is why I'm shocked the left makes such a big deal of it]--anyone and everyone from 80 year old grannies to 6 year old kids can turn on the radio and hear Stern, or watch noonday tv and watch Oprah talking about 'salads' [which admittedly is very inconsistent and hypocritical] In order to attempt to make the waves 'safer' and more accessible to everyone/anyone, and not offend parents/kids/etc, there are some limitations. You can still *say* that stuff, you just can't use those public airwaves to do it.

[rvdrock]

For the record, XM was first...and at first did not always have commercial free radio. Sirius is the newcomer, but has made huge strides in catching up to XM, especially since Sirius is the official radio of the NFL. And how do I know all this and more....would you believe I actually learned something from college last semester from a presentation I did? Learning in college...who knew? Anyways, Sirius is better for Stern.

[alongx]

Shit, I didn't realize Opie and Anthony went to XM.

[JSweeney]

I mean there is really a double standard in our media, he gets in trouble for talkin about anal sex, but Oprah is fine for doing the same thing. I think he just wants fair treatment, people need to stop controlling what people listen to because of their own morality

That's because there is a difference in context.
A serious treament of a topic will recieve a dramatically different response than a comedic/irreverant one.

[JSweeney]

crap....i was considering XM. Im not a big fan of Stern, but having his ugly ass on there WILL have an effect on everything from market leader to cost of service. This should get interesting.

Doesn't bother me at all. I'll still just listen to Drew and Mike in the mornings and Deminsky and Doyle in the afternoon.

[dtcarson]

I meant first to try to get a shockjock.
And yes, XM only recently [this year, I believe] went to commercial-free music channels [their talk/news/entertainment channels do still have commercials, but they're not as ubiquitous or annoying as those on tv or radio.
Yes, I think the NFL and Stern are big buys that will help Sirius out a lot. Boht NFL and Stern have lots of avid fans. It'll take them some time to catch up to XM, however. But I wouldn't mind if they do--competition is good.

[Trakan]

I love the Howard Stern show. I can't listen to it on the radio, but I watch it on tv.

[chosen1s]

I'm happy he's leaving the public airwaves. No more arguments. People who want to hear his garbage will pay for it. People who don't want to hear it don't have to stomache it.

Hopefully I'll have kids someday and I'm glad I won't have to worry about them stumbling onto this without my knowledge.

[MorbidAngel4Life]

crap....i was considering XM. Im not a big fan of Stern, but having his ugly ass on there WILL have an effect on everything from market leader to cost of service. This should get interesting.

Doesn't bother me at all. I'll still just listen to Drew and Mike in the mornings and Deminsky and Doyle in the afternoon.

Gotta love Drew and Mike. Some real funny assholes. LONG LIVE WRIF!

Also, Not all of the music on Sirius is "Mainstream". I mean, you listen to Hard Attack, and you probably won't know about 85-90% of the bands opn their. Most are Grind/Death/Black/Thrash metal, with the OCCASIONAL mainstream song like a Korn song or something thrown in. Most of the time they play Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Mastadon, Exhumed, and the like. Those aren't "Mainstream" bands, are they?

[Ledhed]

DLF is gonna be pissed when he finds out he'll have to pay to hear Howard. :lol:

[punqsux]

wow...all you guys still lissen to the radio?
www.freeipods.com ^^

[sblymnlcrymnl]

I'd rather watch the show on E! if I had any real interest in it.

[ElwoodCuse]

I'm happy he's leaving the public airwaves. No more arguments. People who want to hear his garbage will pay for it. People who don't want to hear it don't have to stomache it.

Hopefully I'll have kids someday and I'm glad I won't have to worry about them stumbling onto this without my knowledge.

Yes because god forbid you just don't listen to it if you don't like it and not rely on the government to raise your kids. "Stumbling on to it"? Your kids ARE going to hear some objectionable things from somewhere. It's a given. It's your job to teach them to ignore it, not the government's job to make sure everyone grows up in a bubble.

[BigDirty]

Doesn't bother me at all. I'll still just listen to Drew and Mike in the mornings and Deminsky and Doyle in the afternoon.

What station are D&D on now? I know they moved out to Detriot after calling a "local celebrity" a lesbian cowgirl in NJ. But once they moved never heard again except for the one time Bill Doyle was out here for a wedding and called in on the weekend music show.

[KingDox]

I wish I had satalite radio, but I'm too poor right now. All I want is the electronica stations. I hear like there are only 3 on XM, I'm not sure how many are on Sirius. You never hear good electronica music on the radio durring 99% of the week.

[defender]

Who the hell gets up that early?

[dtcarson]

Sirius's playlist certainly isn't 'mainstream' like FM, but from what I've heard, it's not quite as 'deep' as XM. So it's wider than FM, but not as deep. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you're interested in.
I know XM plays O&A live, then they replay the show throughout the day; I would assume Sirius would do the same for Stern, or at least have 'encore presentations', since he's probably not going to be on live 24x7.
XM does have 3 electronica/dance/techno type channels, I'm not into that so I don't know if they're 'good' or not, but my wife listens to them a lot.
Looks like Sirius has got 6 'electronic/dance' channels, but that includes Disco; which XM has and I didn't count above; and one that's 'Breakbeats/Old Skool" whatever that is.
I knew what channels I'd focus on before I got XM, but I'm actually surprised by what I am listening to sometimes. There's a standup comedy channel I like a lot, and actually one for Latin Jazz that is very perky and energetic, and Cinemagic [movie scores/clips] is sometimes appealing.

[MorbidAngel4Life]

Sirius needs a stand up comedy channel. The only channels I really listen to are Hard Attack, Octane(Pure Hard Rock), The rap channel, and the Electronic/Techno/Trance channels. AND NOT THE DISCO!

[Moxio]

Anyone else get the feeling that Howard is trying to become the Hugh Hefner of adult radio?

I agree.

[The Successful Dropout]

Remember when he was funny?

Yeah, me neither.

Well there was that one time.. wait, no, that was juvenile and inane too....

Stern isn't funny, isn't interesting.. if I want to be "shocked".. I'll look at zebra porn on the internet. Since he's on my local classic rock station in the morning, I'd love to see him go to satellite so I can listen to something halfway decent in the morning.

yeah, hes not funny....hes only made it this far on his looks :roll:

some ppl have good taste, some dont....i personally love the stern show...its either for you or its not...you don't have to like him, but the give the man credit goddamnit