as always, kudos to your tireless Stern coverage during these historic years where he has battled the FCC and now moved over to Sirius.

I think it’s obvious that anyone who listens to Howard for a few hours a week – and not just watches the E! show (a poor representation of the show as a whole) – usually turns into a fan if not a rabid fan.

Stern has the strange ability of making stars human and freaks stars. When people talk about his stripper and whore guests they’re obviously not listening because the sexuality in the show transcends simple hetro-sex, over the years we’ve heard hundreds of hours of gay male sex sounds and now granny sex talk not to mention miget sex sounds – making the most opened-minded of us have our envelopes pushed, so to speak.

This last week of shows with the return of the old guard, especially Jackie were incredible, awkward, uncomfortable, and bittersweet. Rick Dees never gave us such moments.

And of all the speeches last night, I think the most poignant was from drunken artie whose words were funny but spirit captured the celebration of the completion of one era now passed and a new one about to start.

Why a tv channel like UPN or even E! didn’t cover that last day is beyond me, as anyone who saw the Yahoo! coverage witnessed a mess of amature television production.

Regarldess it was still better than nothing, although it will be interesting to see what On-Demand captured.

Jeff, for Christmas, here’s some links that you might enjoy.

Fred’s pictures from Friday
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardnation_fred/show/

A Yahoo VIP’s pics from Friday
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardnation_fangirl/

Another Yahoo VIP’s pics from Friday
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardnation_stern_photo_gal/

MP3 of the Jackie interview:
http://www.easy-sharing.com/152057/12-15-05%205.mp3.html

MP3 of the final show:
http://s41.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=34C8IYI40HK9M38XM4ZYQ2TOJU

and the very last segment of that last day – ridiculously edited by the radio station during Robin and Howard’s speeches
http://s41.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0MZ506ZC627IC2NJSF4X8I57IE

Howard on the Best Damn Sports Show
part one:
http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=6a877110-610a-4149-9b87-3688b7bd8f4d&f=copy

part two:
http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=09ef3732-bb6f-4ee7-8e54-80326f8301b9&f=copy

Happy Holidays Jeff, see you on the other side!

Tonight ABC is putting on their annual musical (Once Upon a Mattress) with a big name cast, etc. Without the prospect of several million viewers they would never have made the film. And one minute after the show is over they have to start all over holding an audience in the next hour. And so on 168 times a week.

The common inversion of Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame is:
“In the future everyone will be famous to 15 people.”

Another major decision made by current management was abandoning the Oldies format for a jockless attempt at immitation of an individual’s i-Pod. Consider the following…
-The Oldies Format reaches adults 45 plus
-This is the fastest growing segment of US population, 37% of all adults and by 20015 over 50%
-$1.9 Trillion worth of spending power
-3/4s of the nation’s wealth
-These are people who typically do not burn music off the internet
-People who are more apt to use traditional forms of media

This demographic was superserved with Oldies and they tossed it out the window in favor of a trend that they are intimidated by. Abandoning this format was a TOTAL mistake and a knee jerk reaction, in my opinion. I honestly believe they used this as a way to spin Wall St that they are embracing change and adapting to challenges in the marketplace.

The fact is, they abandoned the format because Madison Avenue is so focused on 18-44 year olds that they took the lazy way out. Instead of going directly to the clients and selling the strength of the demographic; they chose to take a path of least resistance, placating the media buyers’ myopic view that 45+ will never experiment with new products and that they are set in their ways.

The result is early, granted, but when you take a constant top 10 station(s) in adults 25-54, let alone the true 40-65 market, and toss them asside, clearly it must be a mistake. The fact is, if the stations were underperforming from a revenue side, it is a sales problem, not a programming problem. I give you that the format does well in certain markets (LA for one) and time will tell in others but I can honestly say that total abandonment of a format, a format that superserves a demographic stated above is, at best, foolish.

It is these sorts of decisions, two major ones, that will mark the current management (you said the names not me) for a long, long time. Maybe the gamble will pay off, time will tell. But why choose to go to war with so many emerging technologies and so much media competition (serving the 18-44 year olds) when you have your own niche carved out?

Again, under the latest decisions at Infinity, I shudder to think where it would be as a stand alone company. Viacom will be splitting in a few short weeks and Infinity’s importance will be rising under the “new CBS” umbrella. It will be very interesting to follow, to say the least.

I am an expatriate American working in London. In order to fulfill my Stern fix for the last year I have had a friend use Radioshark to record his broadcasts and then file transfer the mp3s to my pc. It has been the remedy to homesickeness. Thats all gone now and sadness begins.

I don’t think satellite will ever take out terrestial radio – I think Infinity was crazy not to leverage Stern’s leaving into some type of marketing opportunity. But media is about content not about transport. Satellite today, DAB, WiMAX, etc., etc. – I think Stern will be there.

I wish him well and can’t wait until they announce and Internet feed. I will happily pay. Its the least i can do for 20 years of free entertainment.

Very similar to the Purdue Chicken campaign, where Frank Purdue did those homey and hokey ads telling you to ask your grocer to carry Purdue (brilliant in that it de-commoditized Chicken, but I digress)

Jeff, I am really enjoying your site. Very provocative. Thank you for allowing me to babble….

That being said, if I were a Satcaster I would be looking for as many outlets to distribute the content they create. Yes Satcasting has it’s place in the die hard commuter. Yes it is offered within the price of a leased or new auto as OEM but what is unclear is the churn rate, once those monthly bills start coming in. I can see Karmazin and Pannero taking thier content to the web (at some sort of discount) in order to build a critical mass to sell advertising on the talk content.

As an asside for those who compare Satcasting to Cable…
Some have argued that MTV built cable. I dissagree, cable built MTV. Remember the I want my MTV ads; the traditional pull campaign when MTV launched. This was done after cable had enough penetration to warrent the channel and vast marketing to launch. If anything built cable, I think it was HBO.

Cable had a relatively low cost for entry; you did not have to purchase the box. Also, time spent with the television was enormous and there were 3 networks and PBS sprinkled with a few indipendant stations in each market. Remember that Beta and VHS were relatively unknown at the time and were in the infancy of battling to become the industry standard. Cable came along at the right time.

Comparing Cable to Satcasting does not seem to play, in my opinion. Just look at the audio choices you have; terrestrial radio (29-40 stations in the NY Metro alone), CD’s, Internet radio, Cable audio, cell phones and with the future of WIMAX who knows how long the window will stay open for Satcasting.

I kind of see a future of content distribution for the Satcasters. I may be wrong but I just don’t see the Sattilite as the future for them (sure it will be one of many revenue streams) but I don’t see it as a stand alone business. I think the business will need to evolve. Plus, I would not want to carry the debt of putting those birds up just to turn on the lights, let alone the content deals…

Look forward to your reaction and thoughts….

So why did Infinity allow this? Because they, like most traditional media companies are a 30 day company. They run in fear of Wall St, trying to make budgets within the month. Sure they give lip service regarding digital media (podcasting on News Stations, who the hell wants that? or HD Radio, please…) The fact of the matter is, they have no regard for anything except the immediate crisis at hand (making budgets within the month as opposed for preparing for months ahead).

Howard Stern recognized that the management would not saccrifice his considerable advertising revenue and he played them like a drum. Again, traditional media is not willing to saccrifice the short term for the future and that is why they are in the position they find themselve in currently. Like Band Ades in triage… So shortsighted, so predictable, so pathetically foolish…