Howard Stern and the big secret

How many people who listen to Howard Stern for free will pay for the privilege?

It's the $500 million question for Sirius Satellite Radio. That's how much they're paying Howard Stern, in cash and stock, to walk away from broadcasting and perform for an audience of paying subscribers.

There's reason to believe they're in for a surprise so rude it will make the Howard Stern show look like high tea at Buckingham Palace.

The thinking behind the big contract goes like this: people don't buy technology, they buy content. They said they'd never pay for television but they signed up for cable TV to get CNN and the Atlanta Braves, they bought satellite TV for the football games, they pay for Internet access so they can read the New York Times online and they're moving to broadband so they can download episodes of Desperate Housewives.

You already know the secret, don't you.

The truth is, expensive new technologies from VCRs to CD-ROMs to DVDs to high-speed Internet connections--and even cell phones and video iPods and PlayStation Portables--can be and have been used to view pornography. Not always and not by everybody, but Sirius is chasing the young male audience, and those Girls Gone Wild videos aren't selling to elderly nuns.

Howard Stern is a marketing genius and nobody's fooling him. He told New York magazine he's planning segments for his new show that will include live sex. But radio is at a significant disadvantage in this area. Even if he brings in Vin Scully to do the play-by-play, it won't be the same as watching it yourself.

If Howard Stern wants to separate his listeners from $12.95 a month, he should start looking for hookers with inside information about next weekend's football games.

Gambling is the Internet's other big secret. Fantasy football leagues, online sports betting--nobody knows for sure how many hours of office time are really devoted to earning money Vegas-style.

People will pay for something that makes them money. The Wall Street Journal is the only newspaper that's been able to make a profit on its online site, charging subscribers about a hundred dollars a year for deep and up-to-the-minute information on publicly traded companies.

Think how much fun it would be to watch Howard Stern succeed wildly on satellite radio by turning his show into an orgy of borderline-illegal sports gambling. Picture the clucking congressmen, shaking a finger with one hand and shaking down Indian casinos with the other.

That would be so entertaining, even C-SPAN could charge $12.95 a month.


Copyright 2005


Editor's note: You might also be interested in these earlier posts: Self-censorship: Anatomy of an abuse of power and Brass knuckles and the First Amendment.

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