Revenge, mmmm mmmm
Howard Stern appears on David Letterman wearing his “I Hate Les Moonves” T-shirt. “CBS in their infinite wisdom have put me back on the front page of the news,” he says. He calls Moonves a “C-rated actor from The Love Boat” who is “running CBS into the ground.”
He says to Letterman, “I believe you are working for one the greatest jerks on the planet, Leslie Moonves.”
Letterman asks Stern, “How do you think you’d do in prison?” Stern said that after his nose job, he’ll do well.
Letterman asks, “I know you to be a man of reason, a man of logic… Can you see the point of what they are saying?” Howard responds that CBS accuses him of making a secret agreement with Sirius. “It was in every newspaper…. and I did nothing that they didn’t approve.” He said he spoke specifically with boss Joel Hollander after signing with Sirius and asked him how he should handle it. Hollander said it was OK to talk about satellite but asked that Stern not use the Sirius brand. Thus, ‘eh-eh-eh.’ Stern says Hollander called him and told him he liked how he was handling it.
Stern puts out the challenge on Moonves: “Why don’t you invite him on with me?” Letterman: “We called him for that very purpose, but he’s at a party.”
Tags: Howard_Stern
March 14th, 2006 at 10:36 am
The coffin nail in the CBS case is that they had several buttons they could have pushed at any time to shut Howard up, as he pointed out.
March 14th, 2006 at 10:42 am
From the nobody cares about Stern department via Drudge:
FLASH: SIMON COWELL ON LENO EASILY BEATS HOWARD STERN ON LETTERMAN IN MONDAY NITE MEDIA MATCHUPS… NBC ‘TONIGHT’ 4.9 RATING/13 SHARE TO CBS ‘LATE SHOW’ 4.2 RATING/11 SHARE…
March 14th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Mark, it’s because CBS did not promote Stern’s appearance on Late Night. Commercials for Monday’s show only promoted last year’s Idol winner.
March 14th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Cmon Alvin, let’s not start confusing everyone with facts here…
March 14th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Of course, that must be it. It couldn’t be that many people aren’t interested in Stern anymore?
March 14th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
How about the fact that Leno kicks Letterman’s ass every night? Leno’s been much more popular than Letterman for several years now, so that statistic is meaningless. I don’t have numbers in front of me, but I’m guessing Letterman’s ratings on Monday were notably higher than what he normally gets.
March 14th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
BW, you’re right. What was I thinking.
Mark, if Stern wasn’t so interesting, why did Hannity & Colmes’ ratings jump when Stern was on last week?
March 14th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Putting Stern aside for a moment… is Letterman really doing that well against Leno these days, anyway? I heard Stern was on Letterman, and my reaction was “eh”, while I kind of got excited by the idea of Stern interviewed by Sean Hannity on his radio show.
Letterman’s kind of worn out, never been much of an interviewer in the first place. I imagine he just slung the usual inanities at Stern, and Stern said what he came to say about Moonves. Hannity and Stern, on the other hand, were fascinating counterpoints — Hannity grilled Stern on his morality, and Stern grilled Hannity on his. Hannity is sympathetic to Stern in many ways, so it certainly wasn’t a hostile interview, either.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
To add to that, Stern probably did himself more good by showing up on Hannity, not by virtue of raw numbers, but by having the opportunity to persuade people who aren’t already fans… people watching Letterman, like JJ, here, already listen to Stern and are on board with the Stern agenda. Hannity, on the other hand, advances the argument that Stern’s freedom of speech is equivalent to his own, which is a better argument for non-Stern fans.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
But in Mark S’s defense, those numbers aren’t completely irrelevant, either. If the Stern soap opera was as important as some here believe it to be, Letterman’s ratings should have shot up. Appearances by Stern on FoxNews and Hannity’s radio show, on the other hand, are obviously novelties for that audience.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:36 am
And can we please stop linking howard stern to the “free speech” nonsense? listen to these clips from Hannity today:
Stern admitting he put a gag order on the O&A:
http://www.doublewidz.com/ssfileupload/store/SternonHannity/Radio%20Wars%203%20O&A%20and%20gag%20order.mp3
Stern: “I believe in Censorship”
http://www.doublewidz.com/ssfileupload/store/SternonHannity/Radio%20Wars%203%20O&A%20and%20gag%20order.mp3
March 15th, 2006 at 2:49 am
If the Stern soap opera was as important as some here believe it to be, Letterman’s ratings should have shot up.
Again, the relevant question isn’t if Letterman beat Leno on Monday night, it’s if Letterman’s ratings were higher than the ratings he gets on any other night. So far nobody has come up with those statistics. My guess is they did shoot up - not enough to beat Leno, apparently - but I bet it was an above average night for CBS. Anybody know what Letterman usually gets?
March 15th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Ben,
When you’re talking about “free speech” in the sense of the FCC, you’re talking about government action. When Howard Stern is talking about “prohibiting” O&A from mentioning his name, that’s between two private parties and the Constititional right to free speech is not implicated. Stern freely admitted that it’s hypocritical in a sense. But remember, he was in competition with O&A.
March 15th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Alvin,
I understand… but the bottom line is that Howard doesn’t like to be shut up (whether by CBS dump buttons or the FCC), yet he is shutting people up.
“I’m for free speech, but only when it comes to me.”
Let freedom ring.
March 15th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Alvin writes “But remember, he was in competition with O&A.”
They were not in competition. Howard worked mornings. O&A worked afternoons. They are not competing for listeners.
Not to mention they worked for the same Company.
March 15th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
I don’t buy that gag order story. Look, just because Howard Stern SAID he believes in censorship, that doesn’t mean he MEANS it.
Remember, Howard Stern has said he would rather quit entirely than take Fridays off. He has also said he wouldn’t want to work with someone like Bubba The Love Sponge. Yet now he has invited Bubba onto his very own channel, and is taking Fridays off left and right. So clearly there is a world of difference between what the man says and what he actually does.
March 17th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Hey the problem with stern was that he was getting paid in stock, and he didnt mention that. They paid him the day he came over for the subscribers he got them while he was still at CBS Radio. So in a way they are right, he was making money while he was working at cbs, on the Sirius stock, that was priced the day he said he would leave CBS.
March 17th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Tim, Sirius disclosed the stock incentive in an October 12, 2004 SEC filing:
Then, when Sirius paid Stern the accelerated payment, they said this in their Jaunuary 5, 2006 filing:
March 18th, 2006 at 6:20 am
The whole thing was/is pathetic. Nobody in Letterman’s audience even knows who Les Moonves is. Let alone cares. Stern sitting there doing an impression of Moonves talking and sucking his teeth was sad and lame and pathetic all in one. A sixty year old mental teenager with a new nose (anyone else notice Stern’s ridiculous vain constant posing for cameras with that new Herman Munster male model look he’s got?) complaining about an entertainment executive nobody knows or cares about. Oh, and then there’s the gear. Don’t forget to buy that satellite radio gear, kids! You’ll look real cool on campus!!
March 20th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I’m STILL trying to figure out how Letterman got Stern on the show. That must have really caused him some grief from the CBS higher-ups.