People used to ridicule the notion that customers would actually pay for TV…
NEW YORK (AP) – Top-ranked shock jock Howard Stern says he is leaving Infinity Broadcasting Corp. to join Sirius satellite radio, beginning in January 2006, where he’ll get the national audience he has coveted.
Stern announced Wednesday that he has signed a five-year, multi-million dollar contract with Sirius, a national distributor of commercial-free music and sport programming. Stern will be heard in every market across the country, according to a joint statement from Stern and Sirius.Update:Howard’s deal is worth $100 million a year. While this is big news, as tech columnist Dan Gillmor notes, it’s not certainly not a financially risky move for Stern. Sirius, on the other hand, has pushed most of it’s chips to the middle of the table in betting on Stern.
If I’m going to pay for radio then I’m going with XM/O&A. MUCH funnier than Stern as of late.
“Heard in every market in the country”, but only 10 million people have access to the Sirius network, and only a few of those will actually tune in to Stern.
He’s going to take a massive hit in audience size, unless a phenomenal number of Sirius units get sold.
No commercials will be sweet, though.
I don’t think Stern can go for 3 hours without commercial breaks. I don’t think he can do a week of shows without a commercial break at least every 20 minutes. He’ll have more dead air than Air America.
Stern’s gonna love being on Sirius. I’ve been on for the past six months and those guys are great.
Please used to ridicule the notion that customers would actually pay for TV…
Huh?
How much do I have to pay to make sure somebody doesn’t sneak into my truck and install Sirius when I’m not looking?
I suspect that relatively few will sign on with Sirius just because of Stern. One signs up because one gets a plethora of uninterupted radio programing of which Stern will be just one option.
It’s interesting that XM also talked with Stern and decided his price wasn’t worth it.
Except for his misguided Bush-bashing, Stern
is very entertaining. You have to accept
(something that Stern has never done) that
it is adult programming that shouldn’t be
on public airwaves in daylight hours.
Last year, I was considering satellite radio as
I commute quite a bit and am always losing
station reception. I liked the Serius plan better
(lower cost, fewer commercials) but XM seemed
to be the clear market leader. I was hesitant
to invest in the “Sony Betamax” version
when a lower quality but more popular
“VHS” version was out there.
Now, I may actually have a reason to go
with Serius. Maybe this time Betamax will win.
I’ve listened to Stern for forever, but the show has been one big dissappointment lately. O&A – now those guys are funny.
What I find interesting is that XM is charging $1.99 for O&A… that gives them the right to cuss, and XM a way out for people who don’t even want it on the dial. How much do you think Sirrius is going to have to charge to cover the $100M. It will be hefty I’m sure. More than O & A at the least… which btw, is as much as Playboy radio… I am a huge Stern fan, and I completely believe that a huge base of fans will run out and buy Sirrius just to get Stern uncensored. The polls are there, the numbers are there, and the history is there… whatever you may think of him, he’s going to change the face of Sat radio forever….
Stern jumped the shark years ago. He’s now a hollywood panderer and kiss-ass. In fact, you’ll occasionally see him leave the studio wearing a brown leather jacket and carrying water ski’s over his shoulder…
O & A are WAAAYY funnier.
Stern made his celebrity by being the “Shock Jock” and pushing the limit. How is he going to do it now that he will have no limits? One of the things that made him so funny or interesting was his clever dance around the limits. Being one of the first in the new market place will make him a big frog in the little pond,but I think when that pond becomes a lake he will be in trouble.
This was a risky move by Sirius but I think a smart one.
Howard is going to be included as part of the basic subscription, at no additional cost. The base fee is $12.95 a month.
HBO sees a huge uptick in new customers before the beginning of every Sopranos season. Those people are incurring $15 a month for a weekly TV show. I would bet that a significant number of Howard’s fans will be willing to pay $13 to still hear him every day on the way to work. And if even a small fraction of them do, Sirius will make a killing.
When I heard that Howard Stern was going to Sirius, I was hoping it meant that he was going to a star system 8.7 light years from here.
Soon I’ll be able to do to the country, and the unions what I’ve been doing to Teresa all these years.