Now, let it be noted that I am not a huge fan of Howard Stern. I think he’s misogynstic, childish, and at times, downright mean. But he didn’t do anything he hasn’t been doing for the last umpteen years, and suddenly, they turn off the lights at Clear Channel?
I’m beginning to really wonder what’s behind this. It smacks of McCarthyism, Big Brotherism, and Bushism. “Be vewwwy, bewwwy cawful… we’wre hunting COMMIES!” Is anyone else getting this vibe?
“They are so afraid of me and what this show represents,” [Stern] said.
What does it represent? Naked midgets? Racial slurs? Insulting celebrities? Just because it’s offensive doesn’t make it subversive, Howie.
I think Stern’s show is tired out anyway. Whatever shock value it once had, has long since diminished. Nobody is surprised, or really shocked at all anymore. Besides viewers of “The Man Show” I can’t think of who his audience might be. Does anybody really listen to that crap anymore anyway?
That said, I think Clear Channel’s decision smacks of knee-jerk reactionary over-convervativism. George Orwell had it right; he simply predicted events about 20 years earlier than when they’ve actually occurred.
I dislike Howard Stern and his bitch Quivers, too. Why’d he get suspended, though?
My local news station mentioned that John Hogan, the president of Clear Channel is testifying today before the House Energy and Commerce Committee and suggested that the reason they suspended Howard Stern’s program was so he could mention that in his testimony. Of course they’ve probably been broadcasting his show for years, but all of sudden they realized that it was raunchy.
Howard Stern was suspended by Clear Channel, but he works for Infinity. His show is syndicated and amongst the stations getting the show are 6 Clear Channel stations. Those 6 stations aren’t broadcasting the show. I listened to the first half hour of his show this morning on WJFK, an Infinity owned station.
The excuse they gave was that a racial slur was said on the show. A caller used the N word and was hung up on. Obviously they were looking for any excuse to take him off the air. I’m surprised that any Clear Channel stations were carrying the show anyway. Stern works for Infinity which is CC’s arch rival (pretty much the only one). This only effected 6 stations. I think that CC didn’t want to get in trouble for someone that they are not making much money off of so they dumped him as soon as they could.
Clear Channel’s edgy Howard Stern stand-in was “Bubba the Love Sponge”, who was fired just a couple of days ago. Clear Channel is really sucking the FCC’s dick hard lately.
Love him or hate him, he still has a HUGE audience.
I read this morning it may have been, at least ostensibly, about his guest on Tuesday, the guy in the Paris Hilton video. He was talking about sex with her and others. Nothing particulary out of the ordinary for Stern, from what I heard.
The link is no longer on Drudgereport.com, but I read that the banning was a result of Stern interviewing the male counterpart of the Paris Hilton tape. Something about anal sex and penis size was mentioned on the air.
What? You’re not allowed to talk about doing some skank in the ass on public radio? Who knew?
The pendulum on its way back, that’s all. Standards of decency aren’t fixed, and they haven’t been constantly expanding since recorded history. The Victorian era was preceded by one much more raunchy. Janet Jackson’s breast was the furthest excursion of the pendulum, and now the culture is swinging back big time.
To answer the lyrics of the song - “Where do you go after you’ve gone too far?”
A: Back were you came from
Didn’t some caller ask him (Saloman) if he’d ever gotten any famous n-p*ssy, and if it tasted like watermelon?
I caught a clip of Hogan’s testimony on one of the cable news stations while channel flipping between them. He was detailing Clear Channel’s new policy concerning on-air indecency and personnel. He was first describing what sounded like their old policy (if I heard him correctly), a three strikes and you’re out system involving suspensions, remedial decency training, putting a signal delay on to programs, and then termination. The new zero-tolerence policy sounds like if a Clear Channel station is cited and fined for a decency offense, the employee will be immediately terminated. Which seemed to boil down to: “If you cost us money from a fine, you’re gone.” How curious they adopted this around the time FCC Chairman Powell wanted to increase the cost of a fine tenfold.
As for Stern getting yanked from six Clear Channel stations. It appears to be over a caller using a racial slur (guess which one) and some typical Stern-type sex talk during an interview with Paris Hilton’s ex-boyfriend Rick Solomon about “notorious” sex tape.
I’m torn between my “couldn’t happen to a nicer guy” loathing of Stern and my digust for the very same big media companies, who have benefitted from the media deregulation era and Powell’s being a cheerleader for media consolidation, now kowtowing to this renewed concern over “indecency” when they’ve had a free ride for so long concerning broadcast license renewals, light fines, and risque material.
::looks at own feet::
Hey! How’d that soap box get there?
My husband and I are HUGE Stern fans. HUGE. We are also very well educated adult professionals in our late 20s/early 30s, own a home, a dog, and are expecting our first child this summer. Hardly the picture of indecency, wouldn’t you think?
So I think it’s the comments made by John Hogan, CEO and President of Clear Channel, that offend me FAR more than the bit on the Stern show that morning that supposedly were the reason for the suspensions (from CNN.com):
Jeez, I’m a woman with a sense of common decency, I like to think, and Stern’s comments that morning were far from insulting. I listened to his show while eating breakfast and that bit was no more ‘shocking’ than anything else he’s ever done before. I’d think that “Anal Ring Toss” might be a little more eyebrow raising than that guest was.
I tend to have a hatred for anyone who is out to “protect their listeners from indecent content.” Gee, I’m so glad someone has decided I can’t figure out for myself what’s suitable for my own ears.
I don’t like this notion of enforced “decency,” since it seems to be part of this whole Bush-Cheney abhorrence of freedom and will no doubt include fines and imprisonment for people who betray the fatherland in addition to anyone who makes a farting noise or otherwise makes references to the bathroom or the bedroom.
On the other hand, just once I’d like my indignation over first amendment rights to be in support of something besides racial slurs, pornography, or other offal. I don’t think being repugnant makes Howard Stern a hero, I just don’t think he should be censored because it’s a free country.
I flip between Howard and another morning show during my daily a.m. commute (I find I am one of the few people I know who neither loves or hates Howard).
I like listening at times; other times, I don’t. I was listening this morning and he is basically predicting that he’ll be taken off the air completely in the next few weeks, all because of America’s pre-occupation with Janet Jackson and her idiotic Super Bowl performance.
The last thing I want is a public menace like John Hogan deciding what programming he needs to censor in order to “protect” listeners. I can be my own censor - I call it changing the channel. Hogan and people like Michael Powell represent perhaps an even greater threat to American civil liberties than the Bush Administration and its ‘Free Speech Zones.’ Frankly, its frightening what is happening in this country.
The thing that irks me is that they got so fucking rich off this kind of programming, and now all of a sudden, it’s filthy and indecent? Those hypocritical bastards! Like I said, I’m no fan of Stern…(what his show lacks in clever it makes up for in stupid)…but I’d love to see him do a nationwide live tour. He’d fill the biggest arenas in the country and make more money than he could have possibly dreamed of. And he could tell ClearChannel and the McCarthy Gang to go fuck themselves.
I don’t know that I would call myself a fan of Howard, but I listen and some times I agree, somtimes I turn him off, and some times I laugh my ass off!
Clear Channel taking him off the air isn’t that big a deal. 6 stations? Who cares? He’s syndicated! Tons of people listen in lots of cities. He won’t even miss them once he gets over being offended.
The new FCC rules are going to do to radio what they did to broadcast TV. XM and Sirius or any other satelite radio services are going to do what cable did and collect all of the good jocks that are pissed off with the censorship and go to a service that doesn’t want to have rules and isn’t controlled by FCC rules. When Russ Martin (Dallas’ best local talk guy) goes to XM I’m buying a reciever. I just want to know ahead of time so I can get XM stock!