The Daily Stern
: COVER STORY: The magazine article I wrote the FCC, the First Amendment, and Howard Stern will be the cover story in the next issue of The Nation. This was the story I pulled from another magazine after a bad edit. Micah Sifry sent it to The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel and now it’s on the cover. They tell me the story will be up online this week; I’ll link to it as soon as it is.
: THE PEOPLE SPEAK: The exodus of listeners from Clear Channel stations that dropped Howard Stern is breathtaking:
When they dropped his show from six stations at the end of February, Clear Channel expected a morning ratings exodus to follow. In San Diego, they got it. With Stern, KIOZ was No. 1 12+ in February with an 8.9. Without him, the station’s morning drive ratings crashed to a 27th place 0.7 in March. The in-demo decline was even more spectacular: 12.7 to 0.7 in Men 18+, 20.6 to 0.8 in 18-34, and 10.1 to 1.0 in 25-54.
To translate: The ratings for the station plummeted from 8.9 to 0.7; the ratings for men 18+ imploded from 20.6 to 0.8.
The people have spoken, again.
The FCC is protecting no one.
: THIS SUCKS: NPR attorneys are telling Fresh Air that they can’t say “suck.”
: FIGHT BACK: Viacom has filed a formal objection to the first of the recent FCC fines against Stern.
: STERN POWER: The LA Times discovers the political power of Stern:
The long-sought liberal talk radio hero isn’t Air America’s Al Franken, but that walking, talking wedge issue, Howard Stern…..
Like his audience, Stern has always been broadly misunderstood. Calling Stern a “shock jock” does him an injustice, lumping him in with his lesser imitators and with the gross-out inanities of reality TV. In fact, Stern is a provocateur and comic talent in the tradition of Lenny Bruce. Whether his subject is sex, scatology, show business or his own failures and insecurities, he has brought unprecedented frankness to the airwaves. The real “shock”
