Stern Will Jump To Sirius In 2006

UnanimousCoward writes "Howard Stern announced it on his current radio show, and several feeds including this CNET article are reporting that Stern has signed a multi-million dollar multi-year contract with Sirius Satellite Radio starting in January, 2006. As I've watched technology grow from the time I was listening to Stern in the eighties, I can't wait to hook into a shockjock-timeshifted-podcast..."

Re:Already predicted in this Wired Mag article:

[Ryan Stortz]

From XM's corperate page [xmradio.com]: XM Does for Radio what Cable and Satellite Did for TV:

Beyond AM. Beyond FM. It's XM - Radio to the Power of X: Radio has just taken a quantum leap into the future. With over 120 channels in 2004 of music, news, sports, comedy and talk, nationwide coverage and digital-quality sound, XM Satellite Radio -- the #1 digital satellite radio service in the U.S. -- is unleashing a radio revolution in cars and homes across the country. Part rocket science, part rock n' roll, it will change forever the way you hear radio. XM's support runs wide and deep, with strategic investors including America's leading car, radio and satellite TV companies -- General Motors, American Honda Motor Co. Inc., Clear Channel Communications, and DIRECTV.

XM is as big a part of the monopoly as any other radio station.

Re:But will Stern fans follow him to satellite?

[Misch]

1. The number of auto manufacturers that have Sirius as factory installed is increasing [sirius.com].

SIRIUS' exclusive automotive partners DaimlerChrysler, Ford and BMW represent over 40% of new cars and light trucks sold annually in the United States. Automotive brands currently offering SIRIUS radios in select new car models include BMW, MINI, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeepâ, Nissan, Infiniti, Mazda, Audi, Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. Automotive brands that have announced plans to offer SIRIUS radios in select models include Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover and Aston Martin. In 2004, SIRIUS radios are expected to be available in nearly 80 different car models, with over 50 of them factory programs. Also Hertz currently offers SIRIUS in 29 vehicle models at 53 major locations around the country. In addition, Penske Companies - Penske Auto Group, United Auto Group and Penske Trucking - are offering SIRIUS radios as a factory installed option, where available, in their cars and trucks through their dealerships.

2. The safe answer is "yes" because of Sirius' advertising slogan: "Censorship_OFF [skyretailer.com]"

XM beat Sirius to the starting gate, but Sirius is gaining ground quickly. According to their CEO, Sirius is slated to hit 1 million subscribers before years' end. This announcement was made well before Howard Stern was signed.

Sirius is the better value, IMHO (Note: Biased, I'm a subscriber)

Sirius: $12.95/Month
Includes:
65+ Commercial Free music channels.
Sports, Talk, Weather
Free on-line music streaming
All NFL games
NBA (up to 40 games/week)
NHL (up to 40 games/week, if they get off their asses.)
Some college sports
Starting Jan 2, 2006, Howard Stern

XM: Base $9.95/month
Includes:
68 Music Channels (up to 2 minutes commercials/hour)
Sports/Talk/Weather
NASCAR

Extras:
Opie & Anthony (additional $1.99/month)
Playboy Radio (Additional $1.99/month)
On-Line streaming music (Additional $3.99/month)

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Re:Already predicted in this Wired Mag article:

[avalys]

Sirius [sirius.com] and XM Radio [xmradio.com] are not the same company. They're competitors.

Sirius is the one that Stern will be on, which I presume is quite a victory for them.

Re:But will Stern fans follow him to satellite?

[bgarland]

Um, XM went commercial-free on ALL the music channels a few months ago. And the price is still $9.99/month. Plus they have weather and traffic channels for 21 major metro areas. Not to mention XM Live, where artists come play in their studio (I heard several amazing performances while I was a subscriber).

What does the extra $3/month at Sirius get you?

I think XM is in the lead, for now.

Stop spreading misinformation!

Re:question about scheduling/time-shifting

[christowang]

He will most likely do 6-10 in New York, and then have it just repeat 10-2 on the east coast which would be 7-11 on the west coast. This is what O&A is doing and it hits the morning drive in the biggest markets.

Re:This is....sad.

[tomsuchy]

People are very quick to judge someone they've never heard, or only heard selected excerpts which usually just highlight whatever position the media venue is pursuing. All media is biased, one way or another. Think for your self.


I thought I'd list some points that might be interesting:

- Many media would love to publish something that makes Howard look bad, and they probably tailed him for years when he was married, but they could never show that he cheated on his long-time (20 years!) wife. She divorced him, btw, and he appeared to be quite devastated by this for some time. The same goes for his current girlfriend Beth Ostrosky, total hottie, although I haven't listened for a while, so I don't know if they're still together.
Beth image search: http://images.google.com/images?q=beth+ostrosky&hl =en&btnG=Google+Search [google.com]

- His show isn't just porn and sleaze (although I admit it's a part of it); the show is essentially about the characters, and their interactions between themselves and their guests, and the stories they tell. Sure, there's occasionally some 'obscene' stuff, but that's life for most anyone who interacts with people. It's like a soap opera, almost, with some very interesting reactions, but this aspect of the show is an acquired taste, because it takes time to get to know and understand the players.

Here's a link to a site run by a guy who writes summaries of every Howard show; it's called Mark's Friggin http://www.marksfriggin.com/ [marksfriggin.com].

Enjoy,
-Tom

Re:Free Now. Pay Later

[danudwary]

Hey! The first rule of usenet is nobody talks about usenet.

Re:Sorry to state the obvious...

[NoahsMyBro]

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, specifically. BUT, as a Sirius subscriber I'm provided a username and password with which I can go to the Sirius website, launch a Sirius Player, and listen to Sirius via the internet.

There are a couple of caveats, though:
1) The player is, as far as I know, IE only. I know it does not work for me under Opera 7.11, nor Mozilla Firefox (I think ver. 0.8).
2) Not all channels are available online. When I've tried to listen to various music channels I've never had a problem, but Air America was unavailable the one time I looked for it, and one other channel I looked for once was also unavailable, but I don't recall which channel it was. It appears to me that the Sirius-originating, music channels are web-cast, but the 3rd parties aren't - NPR, CNN, ESPN, etc....

Hope this helps.

Re:YRO?

[sumdumass]

No it isn't a moving target. The enforcement was just laxed for a while. They never have changed any of the rules reguarding the decency except to allow more thru. The problem is that while a few who would complain usually didn't listen to howard stern for other reasons. They do however watch the superbowl.

Once janet jackson did somethign on broadcast tv, that even with a 7 second delay the broadcasters failed to bleep/coverup, the FCC started reviewing things more tightly. If the broadcasters would have blurred or switched to a background shot instead of showing her nipple, all this wouldn't have happend. If this had happened on a cable chanel nothing would have been said about it because they have more tolerance on cable.

The fact that you have become acustomed to the FCC not enforcing the rules doesn't mean they weren't there. It also doesn't mean they are censoring anything either. What it does mean is that you have become acustomed to radio and television trying to compete with pay cable stations for viewership and you have not seen the FCC activly doing thier jobs.

This is just like a stretch of highway with a 55 mph speed limit. After 2 years or so with out a cop patroling it, people will start to increase the thier speed and end up speeding. Then after a few highspeed accidents, they start patroling it again and everyone does the speed limit. What has changed? The law? No. What people do when pushing the law or forgetting it exist? yes. It is really that simple.