What the People Want »
Yesterday, Clear Channel Radio decided to yank Howard Stern from a handful of stations (6 at last count). Which is fine. It's their company, they can do what they want. And frankly, I don't really enjoy the show much anyway. Bob and Tom are better.
But what I just don't understand is that people want the show. If no one liked the show, they wouldn't listen, advertisers wouldn't pay for their attention, and there would be no money to be made. Yet money is being made.
Take a look at Charlotte. Three years ago (give or take), the station broadcasting Stern's show decided to drop it because of a dearth of advertisers. It's gone, and no one here is really the worse for it, so far as I know. Of course, Charlotte seems to be the breeding ground for syndicated shows, and perhaps Howard was just competition. It seems to me that it is one station making a decision for themselves and their balance sheet, and that's fine.
But when a company like Clear Channel took action, it wasn't about a lack of income from the show. Quite the contrary, it was chalked up to the continued fallout from Janet Jackson's Super Bowl Snafu. Which is pathetic. I understand that the viewing public may not have wanted to see Ms. Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, as I'm one of them. But to decide that the people who want to hear Howard can't hear Howard because it's somehow related? That's ludicrous.
Look, you let your 8-year-old listen to Howard Stern, it's not his problem. It's yours. I, for one, am tired of the government making these choices for me. If I choose to listen to trash, I ought to be able to do so. It's not my problem that you cannot control yourself or your dependents when it comes to listening habits. You need to deal with the problem rather than removing choices from those who are willing to be responsible.
