Sirius needed this deal much more than Stern did. While its CEO hailed the signing as the most exciting and transformational event in the history of radio, the fledgling company has never made money and has skated at the edges of bankruptcy. Investors have seen Sirius stock tumble from a high of $66.50 in 2000 to less than $4. The stock was up 15 percent on the Stern news, up to ... $3.87. For the Stern deal to pay off, Sirius has disclosed, the smut king must lure to satellite radio at least 1 million of the 8 million listeners who now tune him in for free. That's more than double the 600,000 subscribers Sirius has now.
Their competitors at XM Radio have 2.5 million subscribers, and they are not waiting to get in on the sleazestakes. They're presently signing up subscribers for a free trial of XM's new "Opie & Anthony: Ungagged," a premium show involving a modest surcharge in addition to XM's base monthly fee. For those who have forgotten, Opie and Anthony lost their jobs in traditional radio when they encouraged listeners to have sex in a cathedral on a Catholic holy day. XM also has Playboy Radio for an extra premium. Stern will air on Sirius without any extra premium or restriction.
Space, to paraphrase the "Star Trek" line, is the final frontier for content regulations. Stern knows he's probably escaping every yellowing clause in the Communications Act of 1934 by hitting the rocket booster button. It remains to be seen whether the impact of satellite radio on popular culture is anything like the plague we've seen in the last 10 years on cable television, where trashy new trends leaked from pay cable to regular cable to over-the-air broadcast TV.
But it still might not work for Howard Stern and his pathetic agenda. FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin said in February that satellite radio and television providers are licensed by the FCC, which could potentially hold them accountable. He concedes, however, that companies like Sirius could argue that since consumers pay a premium for their products, they would not have to comply.
For his part, Stern wants to destroy traditional radio. "They'll look like antiques when we're done," he boasted. But regardless of the new emerging technologies, is there anything more antique than a 50-year-old man still making a career on adolescent sleaze?