Thursday, February 26, 2004
 yesterday howard stern got dropped by six Clear Channel radio stations, apparently because a caller asked ex-Paris Hilton beau, and sex-tape costar, Rick Salomon if he had performed oral sex on any famou black women or hispanic women.
the caller dropped the N-bomb instead of saying "black" and used a derrogatory term for hispanic.
then the caller asked salomon if it tasted like watermellon.
as offensive as the exchange might be, how is it Stern's fault that the caller used racist language? especially when Stern immediately rephrased the question "have you ever banged a famous black woman or hispanic?"
stern's last fine came 9 years ago. currently he wasnt in any trouble with the fcc, and im not aware of any time that a show was fined or dropped due to the comments of a caller.
in an entirely unrelated note, tuesday stern said that while on vacation he read Al Franken's Lying Liars book and it made him believe that anyone who read that book would never vote for Bush again.
then he said that he will vote for anyone except bush.
somewhere theres an angry drunken dwarf rolling in his grave telling colin powell's son, michael, the head of the fcc, to go and have sex with his mother.
yes you can have standards by which you chose to run your business. and you should. but if i got on rush limbaughs radio show today and asked him the very same thing that howard's caller asked his guest, rush isnt going to be dropped from any markets.
conservative talk show hosts who lie and exaggerate and do drugs while being on the air is apparently decent.
taking a call on the air (which yesterday was heavilly monitored in the wake of the FCC warning stations that obscene broadcasting would be dealt with in a more strict manner) however is suddenly indecent and punishable by immediate termination. no warning. no pre-set written guideline. no nothing.
stern couldnt have had better luck yesterday.
now all ears will be on him.
his show will become increasingly more popular.
as jeff jarvis wrote yesterday he will probably soon be a star on satelite radio which is unrestricted by fcc rules.
and depending on which satelite radio system offers him a deal, he will be richer than ever before, and more powerful than any talk show host in history.
because if i was howard i wouldnt just ask for a few million dollars to broadcast his adult orientated show on sirious or xm radio, i would ask for a percentage of the company.
and with this sort of priceless and on-going free publicity, if i was one of those fledgling start-ups, i would give it to him.
f jackie.
entire 2/25 show here (BitTorrent required) + fark thread + metafilter thread
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