| Hollyday |
| Bye, Bye Birdie |
| by Megan Rellahan |
| That's an FM Wrap for Howard Stern. |
Throughout the entire week, the ‘King of all Media’ – Howard Stern, has been saying goodbye to all of his radio fans.
After 20 years on the air, Howard Stern has finally had enough of the FCC, who fined the shock jock’s show for millions of dollars. In 1995, Infinity paid $1.7 mill to settle FCC complaints and in April 2004, Clear Channel dumped Stern from six stations due to the “explicit” content.
Being a HUGE fan of freedom of speech, Stern always had my support along with millions of other people.
“It’s been a crazy, weird week for him,” said Joe Morganella, ABC/Touchstone’s Development Assistant.
Each day this week, Stern’s “regulars” over the years have stopped by to say their farewells, including, Jackie Martling, the comedian from 5 years ago who was an active participant/writer in ‘The Stern Show’ creation. Other guests to show were; ‘Jeff the Drunk,’ ‘Wendy the Retard,’ and many more.
“One thing that you have to realize is that while he has all these misfits on the show, what he’s actually doing is providing a safe haven for societal miscreants, like Stern himself,” stated Morganella. “Where else in America would hookers, crackheads, retarded drunken midgets and other people like this have a voice?”
When today’s show finally ended, Stern gave a tearful speech to a crowd of thousands who gathered in front of the K-Rock building in NYC.
“We played dildo golf, we played wheel of sex, we are the last of a dying breed,” said Stern. “This is a big moment. We broke every rule known to radio and humankind. The government says clean up your act, we say never.”
Come January 9, Stern will be moving on up to two channels on the Sirius satellite network. And already Sirius subscribers have jumped from 600,000 to more than 2.2 million - a number expected to reach the 3-mill mark by the end of 2006.
In a recent interview with ET’s Vanessa Minnillo, Stern revealed his future plans for the Sirius network.
“There’s a list of about 500 things that we have been banned from doing on regular radio, so what we’re going to do those first couple of weeks is all that stuff,” stated Stern. “Yeah, I’ll always have my angst, and I’ll have my problems and I’ll go on the air and ***** and moan and stuff. That’s sort of the essence of the show. But the freedom to say what I want – I don’t have a censor over my shoulder hitting a button on me every minute – it’s a huge load off.”
Farewell, Stern & Crew. We will meet up again on January 9, 2006. Good luck to you! |
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