Just About Done With Howard Stern
Posted in Entertainment at 10:04 am by Joe July 7th, 2008Today begins the second straight week of vacation for Howard Stern and his Sirius Satellite Radio crew. I’m just about done with this guy and his completely ridiculous schedule. I’ve said on this blog before that Howard used to be the voice of the working man and now he works a 4-day per week, 4-hour per day work schedule where he pretty much gets an additional week off each month. The voice of the working man? I think not.
One of my friends made the comment the other day that you can tell in Howard’s voice how he doesn’t even want to be there any more and I couldn’t agree more. The shows have been lacking lately, though I will give him credit because every once in a long while he hits a home run (usually something that has to do with Artie and his disastrous health). There are a few issues that confuse me about Howard and his current deal, though…
For example, Sirius Satellite Radio ran a promotion to get new subscribers this spring leading into the summer months where their announcer clearly said, “And you won’t want to miss Howard Stern this summer!” Really? We won’t want to miss Howard this summer? Because I’m pretty sure that he’s only worked like two or three, 4-day work weeks this summer (that’s 8 to 12 days).
Also, how can the higher-ups at Sirius justify the $100 million per year expense on this guy when he works such a reduced schedule? I understand that the $100 million is to be used for his channels in addition to his salary, but when the company is on the verge of losing a talent like Bubba the Love Sponge, you have to wonder why so much money is funneled into The Howard Stern Show when it clearly is not using the money correctly (why don’t their microphones ever work right the first time).
Speaking of money, don’t tell me that Stern isn’t bringing in a ton of excess income on his channels. Subscribers to this commercial-free service are treated to frequent 10 - 15 minute non-live content breaks during the show. In other words, we get propaganda from the Howard 100 News team, commercials, and full-length songs (which is incredibly insulting considering the dozens upon dozens of music channels that are truly commercial free). Some of that money can be spread around, you know.
Anyway, it’s ridiculous that Stern is floating by on a contract that is designed for someone to NOT float by. I hope Mel Karmazin reigns this guy in because with his current attitude, the ridiculous amount of commercials, and his current schedule, Stern may actually be hurting the satellite radio movement more than helping it.
July 7th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
U r right on a lot of points.ie. Howard does sound burnt-out.(I personnaly think its the pressure of not realy wanting to be married). He gets a tone of time off each year(10 wks) not including fridays. And a huge salary( not to include 20 or so million worth of stock options). All that said—he deserves it. The show isn’t quit as good as it was, say just 5 years ago but its still the best show on radio. And sirius made a brilliant move in signing him. Howard brought at least 4millions listners to sirius all shelling out 13bucks a month. Sirius has made there money back on Howard 4 fold. Its realy the other major broadcast that has sirius realing ie. 150 million for the NFL. Which very few people are going to signup specifically for. It will be interesting to see how much serius offers Howard for the next contract. Since sirius has probably capped the number of listners who followed Howard over, they are likley to offer him half the current contract. But that’s still 50mill a year.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I completely 100% agree! How much Joan Rivers and Chuck Zito do I need to hear to keep me interested long enough to deal with the 4 day work week and endless vacations? The show is all about how rich they all are, who needs to lose weight, and Howard’s endless need to be told he is “A-List” (and let’s get real, he isn’t). They don’t have any good guests, it’s the same Penthouse Pets over and over and over, and no one seems to care to be there. I hardly even listen anymore. I was so excited to have Sirius and The Stern Show, now I don’t really feel my $13 is worth the content I’m getting.