Stern takes talent into new arena in satellite radio

The racy radio star leaves his current gig Friday.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The seeds of the Howard Stern satellite radio revolution are planted in a simple black spiral notebook.
Across its blank pages, the Lenny Bruce of broadcasting scrawls ideas for the riskiest (and richest) move of his radio career, a collection of deranged concepts that fly unfettered from his id, without fears of censorship or staggering federal fines.
None of it is Shakespeare. All of it is pure Stern.
How about a panel of crack-addicted hookers doing their version of "The View"? Or a boozy, dope-smoking Stern regular known as Jeff the Drunk undergoing live psychoanalysis?
"To my audience, that's the Babe Ruth of shows," Stern says excitedly about the last offering. "I'm hitting home runs left and right now! I couldn't do that on terrestrial radio!"
Starting next month, Stern won't do anything on terrestrial radio.
The self-proclaimed "King of All Media" is taking his show to Sirius Satellite Radio, where they're paying the shock jock $500 million over five years to make their business viable after tens of millions of dollars in losses. Stern's windfall includes salaries, overhead and other costs for his programming a pair of Sirius stations.
The move is not about the freedom to spew four-letter words, or five-letter words, or even the odd 12-letter word. "It's about ideas," Stern argues. "This is a free-speech issue. I represent everything they can't do on regular radio."
Out with the old
His escape from the clutches of his longtime nemesis, the Federal Communications Commission, is set for Jan. 9. His farewell to terrestrial radio after 25 years is FridayDec. 16.
And so far, so good: Since Stern announced his move last year, subscribers for the $12.95-a-month service have increased from 600,000 to more than 2.2 million -- less than 20 percent of the audience for his enormously successful syndicated show.
Tension in the business
Yet Stern's success was hardly instantaneous. He was fired from his college radio station, bolted a Washington station after a nasty falling out over money and material, and was subsequently fired by a New York station for airing bits like "Bestiality Dial-a-Date."
The dismissal spurred Stern's ascension: his jump to a rival New York station, his national syndication, his audience of 12 million listeners and annual advertising revenues of about $100 million for Infinity Broadcasting. He freely admits that crushing his old bosses was a huge motivation.
This time, Stern's vitriol is directed at a pair of media conglomerates, Clear Channel and Infinity's parent, Viacom. It was Clear Channel that dumped Stern from six stations in April 2004, while Infinity -- which paid $1.7 million in 1995 to settle FCC complaints against Stern -- recently ran ads that took a pot shot at the shock jock's potty humor.
"I thought Clear Channel and companies like that were going to fight the FCC," Stern says. "I kept hanging around. And they never fought back. ... They are cowards. They bow, and they deserve to be destroyed."
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