DAVID HINCKLEY | Opinion Stern raises the profile of satellite radio

When Howard Stern cracks the microphone at Sirius Satellite Radio in January 2006, some critics are sure all he will do is spit four-letter words.
Some of his less-developed fans probably hope that's true.
Neither of those groups has been paying attention.
Stern has said for years that broadcast radio is dull and his job is to make it lively and fun. Four-letter words, while they will undoubtedly drop in for visits, get boring pretty fast when they don't have ideas behind them -- a fact Stern has always firmly grasped.
Truth is, Stern is going to satellite radio for the same rather prosaic reason as dozens of other terrestrial radio refugees who want to do nothing more shocking than play Ella Fitzgerald records, hot dance tracks, folk singers or Broadway tunes.
Satellite lets them do that. And it will now let Howard tell his stripper stories and scorch the censors.
No FCC. No speed limit. No nervous management hand on a "dump" button, killing anything that might fail an FCC sniff test.
A big deal
It's exhilarating, says Stern. It's also a roll of the dice for Sirius, which is betting a big pile of chips that Stern's hiring will be what the official announcement calls "the most important deal in radio history."
And is it?
Well, not if you count the deals that led to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which greased the mergers that created today's Clear Channel, the conglomerate that kicked Stern off all its stations and that he now vows to destroy at Sirius.
But for contract deals, this one has to be near the top.
First, it tears up the radio landscape for maybe 10 million people who wake up with Stern every morning on some 30 major stations.
Second, it hastens the arrival of satellite radio, our new media toy. Like cable TV and the Internet, satellite radio broadens the playing field, serving a wider range of interests while tossing explicit material into the game.
Michael Harrison, editor of the radio trade magazine Talkers, says a migration to satellite radio has become "inevitable." FCC indecency crackdowns, he says, "make it almost impossible for conventional radio" to keep up with current standards of talk and music.
Give him credit
But if 10 years from now Americans buy satellite radio as routinely as they now buy cable/satellite TV, Stern will take a chunk of the credit.
More than previous satellite offerings like NFL football or even XM's Opie and Anthony, he gives satellite a high-profile "destination," the same way MTV gave cable TV networks a must-see channel in the '80s.
Satellite already is a player. Stern gives it a star. More than any host except possibly Rush Limbaugh, he just might get people to change a habit as ritualized as turning on the radio.
On the air Wednesday, Stern was musing about a reunion with Sirius programmer/host Meg Griffin, a former K-Rock deejay who used to drop in on his show for lively chats.
"I wonder if she'll be happy to see us again," Stern said.
Asked about this later, Griffin replied, "I'm thrilled. Because he stands for something."
XHinckley writes for New York Daily News.