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The Daily Stern

28 comments on The Daily Stern

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”

28 responses to “The Daily Stern”

  1. AndyB Avatar
    AndyB

    Under-the-Radar Radio
    While the FCC cracks down on Howard Stern, Hispanic shock jocks are as raunchy as ever. So far
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4815754/
    “defining what constitutes a dirty word in Spanish can present special challenges. The FCC’s litmus test for obscene speech relies on “contemporary community standards,” but in Miami or New York, Latin immigrants come from several different countries; in much of Latin America, the word bicho means simply “bug,” while in Puerto Rico it’s slang for penis. When a shock jock uses the word coger, does it mean “take hold of,” as it does in Madrid, or is it a vulgarism for copulating, as in Buenos Aires? ”

  2. sol Avatar
    sol

    A revealing, though common, view into the mind of a left-wing ‘free speech warrior’:
    Stern debating Cabby about John Kerry and his medals flap with Stern telling Cabby to ‘get out of the studio’ when Cabby finally said, “That’s your opinion.” Stern screamed and spit back, “My opinion is correct!!!!! Get out of my studio!!!!” Typical of left-wing ‘liberal’ understanding of just what free speech means, i.e. only speech that left-wing ‘liberals’ considers ‘correct’.

  3. sol Avatar
    sol

    Whenever the left takes over total power in any part of the world the first right that disappears is the right to free speech. Thank God that in America the left has always had enough opposition against them (Republicans, conservatives, Christians) to keep the left’s police-state ideology reigning only in their left-wing ‘liberal’ wet dreams…

  4. TC-LeatherPenguin Avatar
    TC-LeatherPenguin

    While I believe that they’re singling out Stern right now for a)stupid political reasons and b)the desire to create a “nanny state”, the mothers to this mess were that pack of yentas known as the Parents Music Resource Center. The Tipper Gore Patrol showed all like-minded prudes that political pressure could be successfully applied to limit public expression “to protect the children” from material that crosses some vaguely described line.
    Where we are now is the natural evolution of lazy boomer parenting. They wouldn’t spend the time checking out the music their kids were listening to so they had the government force it to be labeled if it “went over” the line. Radio can’t be similiarly labeled, per se, so they want a watchdog to monitor the airwaves and label, by smacking a fine on their hide, anybody crossing that imaginary line.

  5. sol Avatar
    sol

    >>>>>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”

  6. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Brutal honesty? Not lately, at least when he goes off on one of his political rants. His spouting about ridiculous conspiracy theories about Bush and his administration are embarassing. Stern just shows how uninformed he is on the issues. His rants are self-serving and I feel sorry for the fans of his show who are stupid enough to believe them.
    Howard has yet to prove his effectiveness to sway voters on a national level. He has backed candidates on the state level in Jersey and New York, but that was when he was making rational arguments. With his diatribes about Bush that seem to be coming from MoveOn.org, I highly doubt political analysts would seriously consider Stern listeners a crucial voting bloc.

  7. Pug Avatar
    Pug

    Whenever the left takes over total power in any part of the world the first right that disappears is the right to free speech. . .
    Of course wherever the right takes over total power free speech reigns. Whenever anyone takes over total power free speech disappears. Jeez.

  8. Lenny Bruce Lee Avatar
    Lenny Bruce Lee

    The Mensas who tune in Stern’s show on a regular basis can’t even read, let alone vote. Wait a minute, that makes them perfect Democrat voters! B-U-C-H-A-N-A-N spells “Gore”, right? (Florida 2000)

  9. HH Avatar
    HH

    When Katrina vanden Heuvel is approving your work, time to rewrite.
    But seriously, congrats.

  10. HH Avatar
    HH

    “If Kerry wins a close election in November, he may well owe a debt to the man who calls himself King of All Media.”
    Stern will say Kerry owes him a debt before Kerry’s done his acceptance speech.

  11. h0mi Avatar
    h0mi

    Brutal honesty and howard stern.
    That’s funny.
    Clearly the words of someone who’s been drinking the Stern kool-aid since the divorce. (The story about Jackie leaving has morphed over time, the free plugs for Nobu, the “save the bunny” story a few years back, even the protest against Snapple a decade ago was all a shame).
    Mike- he backed 2 candidates a decade ago and people pretend he’s some kind of kingmaker. He was in 1994. But he can’t get his 12 million fans to see his movie, buy the dvd or buy his CD, let alone vote for someone.

  12. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    so the ratings dropped, Ok…. where did they go? Which station increased in ratings? Or did those listeners simply tune out of radio altogether and put more cd’s or mp3’s on the car stereo?

  13. shark Avatar
    shark

    Stern’s political power is wildly overrated. I remember when this started, all Jeff and others were saying was “An Anti-Bush Stern is Bush’s worst nightmare”
    Bush is BEATING Kerry, and Stern has been beating his drum constantly.
    What does that say about his political power? Not much.
    And honestly, if he must rant about Bush, can he PLEASE get an original thought? It’s the same 3 things over and over that he took from the dust jacket of the latest Franken book. Howard has certainly taken quite a vacation from independent and critical thinking these days. If I want to hear pre-planned talking points, I’ll tune into Air America.
    For example, Stern was yelling about enviro. regulations that Bush “destroyed”. He was mentioning the regulation that required plants to TOTALLY modernize when they made any changes to their system. Bush relaxed that, he’s destroying our air, our water etc. But what he failed to mention is that regulation was so costly that companies found it easier to NOT modernize at all, and instead of having them modernize to decrease pollution. pollution actually increased because of it. But he doesn’t know that, because he didn’t get it from Rolling Stone or Al Franken.
    His intellectual and political dishonesty is staggering. And his ignorance is breathtaking in scope.
    I also find it amusing that when he was married with a family, he was more libertarian, but now that he’s in the mid-life crisis, he’s basically anything goes liberal. I wonder if he really believes this crap, or if he’s p-whipped into it by his brain-dead girlfriend, who rivals Jessica Simpson for low-wattage brain power.
    At any rate, I don’t care if his “rights” are violated. I only have so much outrage to spend on causes, and I prefer to spend it on something worthy.

  14. BTD Greg Avatar
    BTD Greg

    The Stern vs. Rush comparison is interesting. Stern has willingly become a shill for John Kerry. (Personally, I think he’s trying to see if he can tip the election, just for his own personal gratification.) Rush, of course, has been a shill for the Republican party for a long, long time. At this point, I think Stern’s got a ways to go to match Rush’s prowess at political radio.
    One thing that will no doubt mitigate Stern’s impact, however, is that his audience is Urban and coastal–he speaks to blue staters. Rush is the opposite; he’s broadcasting to the heartland on AM stations across the country. It seems pretty reasonable to me that Stern’s ratings could improve, with lots of urbanites nodding their approval of Stern’s Bush-bashing, while the actual impact of Stern’s political shift is negligible.

  15. button Avatar
    button

    INRE Clear Channel:
    Does the tax structure still have tax write-off to balance profit like capital gains? Investers used to sometimes keep a loser for this purpose.

  16. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Shark is spot-on. I actually love and listen to Stern, but his politics are so nakedly self-serving, I really want to tune out. He has become anti-Bush not because of belief, but because the FCC, for which Bush is responsible, is attacking him. If none of this happened, Bush would be lauded from the rooftops. Kerry is EXACTLY the kind of windbag poseur that Stern normally hates. Who’s being straight with their listeners?

  17. shark Avatar
    shark

    Now to demolish the myth of Stern’s political power.
    We don’t have too many demonstrations of Stern’s power over a nationwide audience to motivate them to get up and do something other than tune in or buy a PPV on a mass scale. But his movie should serve just fine.
    His movie took in a domestic gross of approx $40 million if memory serves (too lazy to find the actual number)
    Now lets say an avg ticket price of $8.00 – that means he got 5 million people to see the movie. That’s pretty good.
    Now, lets eliminate 1 million of those 5. This accounts for repeat viewings, as well as non-fans who went to the movie (family members, girlfriends, boyfriends, groups of friends or curious people in general who may have seen the movie but may not all have been Stern listeners or fans)
    So we have 4 million. As a percentage of Stern’s national audience, this is pretty poor showing. But as a unified voting bloc, this is excellent.
    BUT….
    Is it a totally unified audience who will vote the Stern issue? No. I’ll remove 500,000 from this tally who will vote Republican (and that is being on the low side)
    So we have an audience of 3.5 voters voting the Stern issue. Not bad.
    But…
    Now we take out:
    -Anyone in solid Democrat States (NY, CA for example)
    -Anyone in solid Republican States (TX, for example)
    Because these votes will make no difference in the Presidential election.
    So now we have a good deal of those 3.5 million whose votes are meaningless. The actual number of those in swing states is certainly going to be low.
    Lets say 2 million of those 3.5 are in swing states.
    Now lets remove from those 2 million Stern influenced voters-
    1) Those who won’t vote
    2) Those were going to vote for Kerry anyway
    Out of those 2 million spread out voters, the only ones that really will have an impact are those in swing states that are those who will eiher change their votes from Bush to Kerry on the Stern issue, or those who will register to be a new voter and vote the Stern issue.
    Now I’m not a pundit, but I can guess that the numbers of THOSE listeners will not be enough to tip the balance of a swing state from Bush to Kerry.
    Stern can whine all he wants, but he will carry ZERO sway this election.

  18. tony Avatar
    tony

    Tim,
    I think perhaps you havent listened to Howard long enough to truly understand his “self-serving” politics. When he was deciding to run for Governor of NY many years ago he ran on a platform of doing road construction at night because he was sick of being stuck in traffic while they fixed the roads.
    Although he didnt end up running, the policy of doing more construction at night was implimented.
    Similarilly the fight that Howard is waging now against the FCC/Bush might seem (and might be) self serving, but it benefits anyone who is interested in free speech, particularilly on the radio.
    And it’s a good fight.
    Sorry if youre bored with it, but the numbers show that most of his listeners are happy and its bringing in more listeners.
    Maybe you should tune in later in his program where he hasnt backed away from interviewing strippers, retards, and celebrities.

  19. tony Avatar
    tony

    Shark,
    CC dropped Stern from two of the swing states that you’re talking about (Ohio and FLA). He was #1 in both of the markets that no longer have him.
    Are you saying that the #1 morning DJ rallying against Bush in two swing states isnt going to possibly influence any undecided voters?

  20. mike Avatar
    mike

    tony,
    You give Stern far too much credit. I would say a number of his listeners are fairly intelligent people who see past his mind-numbing rants about Bush and aren’t going to be influenced in any significant number.
    I remember when he ran for governor of NY, it was purely a publicity stunt. Again we go back to his self-serving philosophy. He quit the race because he didn’t want to submit his tax returns, as is required by law in NY. You are right about the construction at night, but its not like that was his idea. If I recall, that was policy in New Jersey at the time for the major roadways.
    Stern’s fight against the FCC is purely self-serving. I don’t see him now and didn’t see him then fight for O&A when they were being forced off the airwaves.

  21. shark Avatar
    shark

    “CC dropped Stern from two of the swing states that you’re talking about (Ohio and FLA). He was #1 in both of the markets that no longer have him.
    Are you saying that the #1 morning DJ rallying against Bush in two swing states isnt going to possibly influence any undecided voters?”
    Tony-
    Actually, I am saying exactly that.
    First of all, not every single listener of his in a swing state will vote for Kerry based on the Stern issue. Stern does have a decent segment of his audience that will vote for Bush. I’m sure that an equal amount of his listeners will also be voting for Kerry.
    So that leaves the undecided listeners. In order to have an impact, these listeners have to either:
    1) Have voted for Bush and switched to Kerry based on Sterns advice
    or
    2) Didn’t vote last time and will now register and vote specifically for Kerry because of Stern
    I just don’t think Stern can either produce enough new voters or switch enough minds to produce the 2% or so movement to tip a swing state.

  22. sol Avatar
    sol

    Stern’s on from 3 in the morning until 10:30 where I live. It’s hard to miss him. During all this recent change in his show I’ve still listened in but only turned it off during the political rant sections of the show. This morning I found myself having to turn the show off during each of the four hours of the broadcast. Stern now leaves no part of his show free of these hair-bleedingly dense and juvenile political rants. So now the show is officially no longer listenable even in the ‘car wreck’ sense.
    If you don’t get his show where you live imagine a 4 hour political lecture from Janeane Garofalo every morning with Whoopi Goldberg joining in in the background repeating every point and expressing exhausted amazement at the stupidity of all the people who can’t understand Garafalo’s lectures…
    Stern is now officially unlistenable in any sense… (I really mean that. Those political rants start and it’s an instant turn off reflex. Absolutely unlistenable, and now it’s his entire show…)

  23. shark Avatar
    shark

    By the way, in case anyone is wondering why Stern is suddenly revving up his anti-Bush rants and tantrums this week…..it’s because he knows that he’s (Kerry) losing.
    And he’s whining like a baby.
    When even the Village Voice says you should be replaced as nominee….it’s over.

  24. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    And here I thought Kerry had lost the nomination last fall. Most people aren’t paying that much attention yet. If Kerry is still running such a crappy campaign in August then he’ll really be in trouble. But don’t break out the champaign yet.
    Stern’s influence will be in getting people to vote who might not have voted. And as we saw last time, a few hundred votes can make a difference.
    Tina Fey was allowed to say bitch on Fresh Air today.

  25. tony Avatar
    tony

    shark,
    i still dont follow your logic. there are many voters who dont align themselves with either party – they vote soley on the person who they think is the best person to vote for.
    for example ive voted for reagan, the first bush, clinton, and nader. stern himself has voted republican and now will vote democrat.
    many forces influence rational voters and to assume that the number one morning talk show host cannot sway enough votes to change an election doesnt make any sense especially in light of the last presidential election in florida.

  26. Milton Avatar
    Milton

    If Kerry wins perhaps he’ll change “Black History Month” to “Black Jeopardy Month”.

  27. Trump Avatar
    Trump

    I truly doubt that anyone who would base their vote on Howard Stern would actually be bothered to go out and vote, much less get a job or learn to read.

  28. h0mi Avatar
    h0mi

    Stern voted Republican? When? Maybe for Guiliani and Pataki.
    He voted for Clinton twice. Voted for Gore in 2000 (if he didn’t lie about this.) I’m skeptical that he’d voted for Bush or Reagan given his strong support for abortion rights and their opposition towards it.