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Tue. Mar 23, 2004

Happy Birthday to the Daily Stern!

Happy Birthday to the Daily Stern! – Tomorrow, it will have been a full four weeks of The Daily Stern: ”PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.”

As I’ve said in Jeff’s comments, the quote above is a sign of some sort. It could be a sign you need to use MT’s category capabilities. It could be a sign of something else.

And during that time, wow, so much has happened. It all started when Howard Stern was dropped by six Clear Channel stations, four weeks ago. It was heralded as the End of Free Speech For Us All, and surely the precursor to millions in fines that would force Howard off the air.

Since then, Howard has been dropped by dozens more stations, fined more than he makes in a year, and beaten with rubber hoses by the Vice Police.

Wait. That seems to be an exaggeration. Sorry, I got caught up in a month of hyperbole like this: ”I am appalled and frightened by the orgy of Talibanism coming out of Congress and the government now.”

My comment to the above on Jeff’s site: ”Has Congress sent a military force to San Francisco and killed thousands of random citizens due to the recent ’moral insurrection’ (i.e., 3,000 gay marriages), as the Taliban did with wayward districts? Have they seized Robin Quivers and taken her to RFK stadium to be publicly executed? Has Howard been beaten with rubber hoses by roving Vice Police? Has the Federal Commission of Radio Vice and Virtue dragged everyone involved off to a dark dank torture cell?”

”When you compare ’Talibanism’ with the current government environment over broadcast indecency, you have reduced yourself to the level of those who compare Bush to Hitler. Such over the top quotes … reduce the credibility of the rest of your argument.”

If Howard hasn’t been beaten with rubber hoses, what are the actual facts of the past four weeks? Howard is still collecting every bit of his $18 million annual income. Howard hasn’t missed one day of work, to my knowledge. He certainly hasn’t been suspended or fired by his employer and syndicator, Infinity. In fact, the CEO of that company has insisted they will defend Howard against any FCC charges or fines. They say they fully expect him to be around to fulfill the remaining two years on his contract. So his job seems quite safe, despite all that you’ve heard.

Yet Howard insists he will have to quit. He first said that the fines would be huge, would be coming in the first days of March, and he’d have to quit. None of that happened. He now says that if Bush signs the bill increasing the maximum FCC penalty, he will quit.

Meanwhile, he talks repeatedly about going to satellite radio. He’s supposedly met with the people at Sirius. He worries on his show about whether they can produce enough receivers quickly for his vast audience when he switches. And he keeps saying he’s going to have to quit, as though he doesn’t even hear what his bosses are saying. But they’re clued in. That’s why they insist they expect him to be on the air for the remaining two years of his contract. They know it isn’t about the fines. They’ve willingly paid millions in fines on his behalf for a dozen years, as a cost of doing business with Howard. They know, as you should by now, this is about Howard trying to get out of one contract and into a new one.

And then finally, after weeks of no factual change in status other than Howard’s increasingly high-pitched whine, the FCC finally came out with the long foretold fines that were certain to force Howard off the air.

They fined Infinity (not Howard) $27,500.

Some perspective. Howard’s salary of $18,000,000 per year is about $350,000 per week, or roughly $70,000 per day. That’s how much Infinity pays Howard to do his show, and from that, they reportedly reap about $100,000,000 per year in advertising and syndication fees. That’s roughly $400,000 per show.

So, in effect, on the day Howard got fined, Infinity made $400,000, gave Howard $70,000, put aside $27,500 for the fine they will surely appeal, and then pocketed over 300 grand.

And that was a bad day.

No one here deserves a tear shed for them. Certainly not every day.

PREVIOUS STERN POSTS: Here and here (sorry, couldn’t resist, even though I have a whole category devoted to radio).