Howard called Jay an asshole.<\/p>\n
I rarely listened to Howard Stern on terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 He was on too early.<\/p>\n
But I check in on a regular basis on the satellite.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Howard’s on all day.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s incredible.<\/p>\n
Today Howard Stern weighed in on the Jay Leno\/Conan O’Brien\/NBC fiasco.\u00c2\u00a0 And he said what everybody was thinking, and furthermore injected insight only a fully-skilled comedian familiar with the territory could supply.<\/p>\n
First, Howard raked Jay over the coals for constantly saying he didn’t need more money, that he was comfortable with whatever NBC was paying him.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?\u00c2\u00a0 NBC’s making record dough on your show and you want to let the fat cats keep it all, and get no more for yourself?\u00c2\u00a0 No one would take that position.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Howard said, and he’s right.\u00c2\u00a0 Jay’s a phony.<\/p>\n
As for Conan, who Howard professed to like, he really had no options, because his ratings sucked.<\/p>\n
Howard put forth the fact that just before he jumped to 11:30, Craig Ferguson was beating Conan.\u00c2\u00a0 What did O’Brien think was going to happen an hour earlier, when he was up against Dave?\u00c2\u00a0 Why didn’t Conan keep his ten million dollars a year, stay at 12:30 and shut the fuck up?\u00c2\u00a0 Why get creamed and lose all your leverage?<\/p>\n
Of course, Conan can now cite Jay’s lousy lead-in, but is this really the reason his ratings are anemic?<\/p>\n
As for the complaint that Conan had to move his entire operation to the west coast, Howard went on to say that this was BUSINESS!<\/p>\n
And in the TV business, ratings are king.\u00c2\u00a0 And Conan just doesn’t have them.\u00c2\u00a0 So his options are limited.<\/p>\n
And would Fox really overpay a guy who’s already lost in the slot?<\/p>\n
As for Jay only doing a half hour stint, Howard called bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 The plan was to try and embarrass Conan to the point he quit.<\/p>\n
I’ve followed this story closely.\u00c2\u00a0 For many reasons, the news leaks, the inane comments about giving Jay and Conan the weekend to think about it, and the abject failure by the supposedly infallible NBC brass.<\/p>\n
At least they admitted their mistake, unlike the record labels, who are still chastising the public for stealing music.<\/p>\n
But the straight press fell behind TMZ.\u00c2\u00a0 And all the esteemed analysts gave NBC’s pronouncements the weight of presidential orations, as if they involved state secrets.\u00c2\u00a0 Oops, Judith Miller gave Bush\/Cheney the same pass.<\/p>\n
If only the public could hear Howard.\u00c2\u00a0 People love when they get it straight, with no b.s.<\/p>\n
Howard’s ridiculed by the mainstream…but isn’t he the real winner in radio?\u00c2\u00a0 Both ratings-wise and financially?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe he truly is smart.<\/p>\n
But he’s almost irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 Because he’s on satellite.\u00c2\u00a0 Proving the point, that distribution is king.<\/p>\n
If Howard were still on terrestrial radio, he’d be part of this debate.\u00c2\u00a0 Now he’s a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 Speaking to his relatively small audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at it this way, when a big event like this happens, like Tiger Woods’ infidelity, even casual listeners gravitate to Stern, to get the straight dope.\u00c2\u00a0 Think of his pull in the past few months if he had a broad forum.<\/p>\n
But he doesn’t.<\/p>\n
He’s got the money, but no impact.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the distribution medium he chose has got a limited audience.<\/p>\n
So don’t tell me how great you are.\u00c2\u00a0 If no one can hear you, it doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howard called Jay an asshole. I rarely listened to Howard Stern on terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 He was on too early. But I check in on a regular basis on the satellite.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Howard’s on all day.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s incredible. Today Howard Stern weighed in on the Jay Leno\/Conan O’Brien\/NBC fiasco.\u00c2\u00a0 And he said what everybody was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-F5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}