Fraters Libertas

$700m Buys A Lot Of Fart Jokes

I have a feeling there are some fairly unhappy Howard Stern fans out there right now.

As everyone knows, Howard left "terrestrial" radio last year and started broadcasting for Sirius satellite radio this past Monday. Since I have been a subscriber for over a year I decided to tune in over the past few days to hear if the revolution was indeed on. My first impressions are that the show is not much different than Stern's old show: lots of stripper talk, fart jokes, celebrity gossip--all of which I admit can be entertaining--but I have the feeling his hard-core fans (many of whom signed up for Sirius and bought the hardware specifically for Howard) will be disappointed that he isn't swearing more and being even more lewd than he was before.

But the biggest reason Stern's fans will be upset is that Sirius gave the impression that there would be no commercials. There are. As many as his old show and this is radio that people have to pay for. I call BS on this. The technicality that Sirius is employing here is that the music is commercial free, but the talk and entertainment channels are not. And since Howard falls into the latter category, his listeners will have to put up with both the live ads that Howard himself does (which are considerably less painful since he can crack jokes while doing them), but also with the maddeningly annoying canned ads for TV shows and internet gambling.

As well, this very morning they played an entire Nine Inch Nails song right in the middle of the program (?). Presumably Howard needed to use the can or something and they don't yet have enough advertisers yet to fill the gaps.

The amazing thing is that Stern worked out a stunning contract with Sirius that allows him to cash in $200 million of stock RIGHT NOW. From Forbes:

Last October, Sirius offered Stern the sky, in the form of a 5-year, $500 million deal--with a bundle of stock thrown in.

Now the deal ripens. On the third day of the jock's half-decade to come in Karmazin's employ, Stern is making a move.

Sirius had disclosed last week that it was giving Stern and his agent, Don Buchwald, 34.4 million shares post-haste--because the firm had already reached certain undisclosed goals for subscriber growth. Goals met, it is likely, thanks to Stern's wildly publicized--and popular--move to the uncensored broadcaster. And the celestial radio firm issued a regulatory filing on Wednesday, saying that entities controlled by Stern and Buchwald would enjoy the proceeds of the stock sale--which could occur at any time.

But no sale date has been set yet; nor has any amount to be sold been disclosed. Buchwald did not return an Associated Press call seeking comment. Buchwald received some 10%--standard agents' percentages--of the shares, a wedge valued at nearly $20 million.

The genius of this contract is that if customers don't renew because they don't appreciate paying for commercial-laden radio (however uncensored it might be) it won't matter at all to Howard. He will collect his yearly salary and will have the stock sale dough in the bank. Sirius however, will probably go out of business.

$700 million ($500m in the contract plus the $200m stock) is a lot to pay for fart jokes and stripper interviews.

GATEKEEPER UPDATE:
It's no wonder that Howard's fans were lead to believe that his show would be commercial-free considering our editor-approved, gate-kept MSM wrote false articles this one from Krysten Crawford from CNN/Money:

Stern is not the only shock jock eyeing satellite radio, a subscription-based, commercial-free medium that, like cable television, is largely unregulated.