Stern serious about leaving Sirius?

[Bug on the rug]

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/2009/12/22/20091222stern.html

Stern can get a larger audience with terrestrial radio.

 

[KOOL Listener Lauren]

Good! I'm no fan of Howard Stern, but I do know how popular he is. You're right about him getting a larger audience with terrestrial radio. This is great news for terrestrial radio.

Any possibility of satellite radio ever becoming a long-lasting success, rather than a trend, was ruined with Sirius merging with XM.

 

[azenergyfan]

I don't care what anybody says, if he moved from siriusxm to basic radio he would have a syndication deal in minutes. Do you know how many stations around the country would love to have him for morning drive, pm drive or any slot? He brings money, he brings the audience and he brings what alot of people are lacking these days, personality. This morning am listening to the history of howard act 3 and they are up to around sept '92 and he has just been brought into dallas. Wow, they need to put these out on a disc set, they are awesome.

 

[kzewdude]

If Stern goes with all his listeners, buh-bye Sirius.

 

[50kguy]

Stern delivers a big audience, but not a highly desirable one. His core is blue-collar men 18-34, a group really hit hard lately. If they don't have money to spend, advertisers won't want to reach them.

As the AP story said, he's coming out of a big contract. Clear Channel can afford Rush because he delivers: high-dollar spots, desirable listeners and excited affiliates. Stern would struggle in all of those categories. Broadcasters used to be able to absorb a high-cost show by hoping to make up for its cost in other dayparts. Those days are gone. (Any TV station manager who expresses sorrow about Oprah's departure is fibbing.)

As for Stern's show, his early work (Detroit/Washington/New York) showed a lot of creativity and humor. As time has gone by, he's become a lot less funny.

 

[ykw]

Stern delivers a big audience, but not a highly desirable one. His core is blue-collar men 18-34, a group really hit hard lately. If they don't have money to spend, advertisers won't want to reach them.

He actually trends well with under-25 M blue-collars and M college students/graduates 18-34. While the former are certainly "hit hard", the latter haven't been shy about ponying up for Stern on satrad. There might be a narrow selection of advertisers looking to hit that target market, the ones that are interested -- record companies, tour promoters, alcohol distributors, restaurant chains, "mistake" specialty products (Wrecking Ball, ResQ Water, etc.) -- are extremely interested in the market. Note that Howard 100/101 has little trouble selling ad time in a supposedly down market.

As the AP story said, he's coming out of a big contract. Clear Channel can afford Rush because he delivers: high-dollar spots, desirable listeners and excited affiliates. Stern would struggle in all of those categories. Broadcasters used to be able to absorb a high-cost show by hoping to make up for its cost in other dayparts. Those days are gone. (Any TV station manager who expresses sorrow about Oprah's departure is fibbing.)

If Stern went back to terrestrial and promised to deliver 44 weeks a year of five live four-hour-plus shows a week, there's no way there wouldn't be "excited affiliates" fighting each other for carriage in their respective markets, or a dearth of national and local companies wanting to be associated with the Stern brand.

As for Harpo... ask the folks at KTVK who've built their entire sked around Oprah and her merry band of Oprah-esque "talents" and spin-off yakkers how thrilled they are about having to blow up their entire brand in less than two years.