Houstonians will soon get a chance to see what all the fuss surrounding Howard Stern is about:
The controversial disc jockey, whose sexually explicit talk show was yanked from several stations for indecency, announced that he soon will be heard in Houston and eight other new markets.
Beginning July 19, Stern's polarizing show will be carried from sunup until 11 a.m. weekdays on the Houston station, which is switching to a "hot talk" format.
"You either really love him or are on the other end of the spectrum," said Bill Van Rysdam, director of programming for KIKK and KILT-AM (610), both owned by Infinity Broadcasting.
The only time I listened to Howard Stern was when I lived in Washington, DC for a few years back in the mid-1990s. I don't recall being "polarized" by him, other than wondering why a man describing a naked woman/women on the radio was so appealing. That feeling has more or less translated to my avoidance of all "morning crew" style programming ever since.
Clear Channel's post-Janet Jackson dumping of Stern from several markets last February seems to have backfired, as Infinity is reintroducing his show to at least four of the markets from which he was dropped.
As usual, money is thicker than public decency:
"As long as Howard Stern brings in more revenue than it costs to deal with the controversy, they will most likely keep him," said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers magazine, the industry's leading trade journal.
Harrison praised Stern's show as "great radio" and added that Houston adult listeners are in for a treat because Stern is "a brilliant satirist and social commentator" who pokes holes in hypocrisy.
I'm willing to give his show a listen for a while just to see if this "brilliant satirist" ever shows up. I had more than enough "Lesbian Dial-A-Date" and "Homeless Howiewood Squares" ten years ago.
Stern's talk show is like no other program in the Houston market, although it could affect the ratings of the Walton & Johnson morning show on KLOL-FM (101.1), which also attracts a large adult male following.
I'm with Chuck on this one, anything that drives those unfunny scumbags off Houston's airwaves will earn a listen from me. For a couple days, at least.
I never liked his show. But I saw its cancellation as highly selective and hypocritical, given the content of other TV and radio shows on the air today.
I don't like Stern's teenage-boy schtick either... but I will say this: over the last few months, whenever Bush or conservatives have pissed him off, he's gotten off the juvenalia and started doing social commentary/ripping on Bush & social conservatives. And Harrison's pretty on; I don't know if I would call him "brilliant," but he is definitely articulate when he wants to be, and argues his case well. Unfrotunately, he then often goes back to juvenalia and detracts from his own credibility, but that doesn't change the inherent correctness of what he says.
I think if conservatives underestimate him as a sex-crazed, lowest-common-denominator blowhard, they do so at their own peril.