Monday, April 03, 2006

Stern gets stern

Howard Stern is pissed at his fans because they haven't all followed him to satellite radio. "It's insulting to me that everyone hasn't come with me. I take it personally," Fox News.com quotes him as saying in an Entertainment Weekly interview. (I know, I know—Fox News, Peter? But the link is worthwhile if only to see how the article is interrupted for an ad with the promise "Story continues below", only to wrap up with a single eight-word sentence after the break. Talk about your widows and orphans.)

Get over it, Howard. Surely you had to realize that a certain segment of your audience listened to your show because there wasn't anything better on, but they're certainly not going to pay for the privilege. I know this sounds like some guy twenty years ago saying that paid-subscription cable television will never catch on so long as you can still use your rabbit ears for free, and it may well sound idiotically lacking in vision in retrospect, but nobody wants to pay for radio.

7 Comments:

Blogger Transcience said...

Didn't Howard put $50M in the bank to switch to satellite ratio? That's a few score million more than I'd need to never complain again. But seriously, he should look at this as an opportunity. His mainstream radio days were all about telling the FCC to go eff itself in the lowest common denominator the censors would allow. I bet his first show on satellite was nothing but the F word for an entire hour. Now that he's been freed of this burden, maybe he can put his talents to better use.

4/03/2006 06:17:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Lynn said...

To quote Bad News Hughes, there's this new thing where you're allowed to swear on the Internet. F word, indeed. But your point is well-taken: It's like a first-year student writing for the university humour paper. This first few articles are gratuitous swearing just because he can get away with it. After he gets it out of his system, he can get around to writing actual humour.

You reminded me of something: At lunch today, I was sitting at my table full of black girls, plus one white girl. We were talking about candy and I used the word "nougat". One of the girls said, "I called [facilities manager] Jamie [Nugent] that last week" I said there was no need to use the N word. Laughter from the white girl, silence from the black girls.

4/03/2006 07:24:00 PM  
Blogger Chance said...

"At lunch today, I was sitting at my table full of black girls, plus one white girl"

You pimp, Peter Lynn! You straight-up, street-strutting badass pimp!

4/04/2006 09:50:00 AM  
Blogger C said...

I listen to satellite radio at work however, I get it for free, I wouldn't pay for it.

If you seek you shall find things for free.

I especially love free food, why does it always taste better?

4/04/2006 12:37:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Lynn said...

That might bear some explanation. I had a work friend who happens to be black. When a new girl who is also black got hired, they bonded immediately because the new girl loves all other black people. So we became a regular trio in the cafeteria. Now the original girl is gone, but I'm still friends with the new girl, who immediately bonds with each new black girl we hire. So they all end up sitting with me, and people sit at the other tables conjecturing that I'm really into black women. They are all reasonably attractive, for what it's worth.

As for the one white girl, she's there because she's pretty and funny.

4/04/2006 02:24:00 PM  
Blogger Holly {ArtistMotherTeacher} said...

widows and orphans. I love type talk

4/05/2006 12:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To be fair, Mr. Stern was being facetious when he made the original statement. Facetiousness doesn't come across in print.

4/06/2006 02:08:00 PM  

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