A STERN RETURN TO CANADA The shock jock starts broadcasting on Sirius Canada's satellite radio service Monday Guy Dixon and Grant Robertson – Globe and Mail Howard Stern, the shock jock accused of bigotry, misogyny and everything in between, will be coming to Canadian satellite radio starting Monday.
Ending months of speculation about whether Sirius Canada would carry Stern, the recently launched satellite service announced yesterday that it will broadcast Howard 100, one of the two Stern channels already offered on Sirius's U.S. service.
Sirius Canada only has space on its dial for 100 channels, so it couldn't add Howard 101, which features repeats of Stern's show, other Stern-related segments and shock announcer Bubba the Love Sponge. Howard 100 took the spot planned to be used for Cosmo, a woman's talk channel, due to launch this spring.
Sirius Canada -- which is 40 per cent owned by the CBC, 40 per cent by radio industry giant Standard Radio and 20 per cent by U.S.-based Sirius -- has been coy about whether it might offer Stern since the service was launched in early December.
Unlike in the United States where satellite radio is unregulated, Canadian satellite radio has to adhere to broadcast standards in order to maintain its licence. But Mark Redmond, president and chief executive officer of Sirius Canada, argued that because parents can prevent Stern or any other channels from playing on their Sirius radios with the use of a protective password, this helps the service adhere to broadcast standards. Sirius Canada can also block a customer's access to mature channels altogether if a user wishes.
Sirius Canada is part of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, and it said that the concerns of regulators at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission should be satisfied by this ability to block out Stern, similar to how viewers can manage adult content on satellite television. Also, whether Sirius Canada carries Stern has never been a condition of its licence, Redmond said.
"We don't know what he's going to say or do on satellite radio, but we do know he's going to push the boundaries," Redmond said. "We strongly believe that the [protective] levels that we've put in place are sufficient to alleviate any of the concerns of the CRTC."
In its role overseeing the licences of Canada's two satellite radio services, Sirius Canada and XM Canada, the CRTC responds if concerns are raised by the public, a spokeswoman said. Complaints are either dealt with by the CRTC or referred to the broadcast standards council.
"We would look at it on a case-by-case basis in terms of what action we would take," CRTC spokeswoman Miriam Gennaro said.
With his graphically sexual and often racial humour, which used to thumb its nose at broadcast regulators when he was on traditional radio, Stern began airing on U.S. Sirius on Jan. 9. So far, he has played taped sexual phone messages from broadcaster Pat O'Brien (which had already made the rounds of shock-jock shows) and, on another program, show regulars revealed personal secrets, many having to do with masturbating.
Many people, the service hopes, like this stuff. With 3.3 million U.S. Sirius subscribers at the end of 2005, industry watchers speculate that Sirius in the States will have added more than one million subscribers by the end of 2006 specifically signing on to hear Stern. Privately owned Sirius Canada doesn't release its number of subscribers or anticipated subscription levels, but it obviously sees enough demand out there.
The wait for Stern in Canada had sparked numerous websites, Internet message boards and an on-line petition all arguing to bring his show to Sirius Canada. It also created a grey market in which users were trading information on what kinds of U.S. Sirius radios could pick up Stern in Canada and how to set up subscriptions with U.S. billing addresses.
Stern has also come at a huge cost to U.S.-based Sirius -- $500-million (U.S.) in salary and production costs over five years. However, because of the nature of the ownership agreement Sirius Canada has with U.S. Sirius, the Canadian service basically only had to decide to include Stern in its roster. In other words, the Stern channel was simply available if wanted.
"This had nothing to do with money and paying them to bring the channel [to Canada]," Redmond said.
Rival XM Canada, which carries the shock radio Opie and Anthony Show and which launched around the same time as Sirius Canada, played down the announcement about Stern yesterday. "He's a proven failure in Canada," said Stephen Tapp, chief operating officer with XM Canada. "He's been pulled off of radio and television and it wasn't just because of controversy, it was because of ratings."
Mr. Tapp, a former executive at CITY-TV, which carried Stern's television show several years ago, said the ratings were strong early on, but slowed down considerably after the shock value wore off.
In recent weeks, as the wait for Stern continued, one Canadian radio-industry insider noted that Stern's shtick, when he was on traditional radio, was to try to flout the standards imposed by U.S. regulators. Because Stern can now say whatever he wants to, the radio consultant said, he'll have lost the impetus for most of his material.
THE KING OF ALL CONTROVERSY
Dec. 18, 1992: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission fines Infinity Broadcasting Corp., Stern's employer, a record $600,000 (U.S.) for what it called "an apparent pattern of indecent broadcasts" stretching back to 1987. Further fines were levied against a station in Pahrump, Nev., in 1993 for Stern broadcasts.
Sept. 1, 1995: Infinity agrees to pay the U.S. Treasury $1.7-million to clear its broadcasting record.
Sept. 29, 1995: After Stern makes jokes about the death of pop star Selena, the U.S. National Hispanic Media Coalition petitions to have the licences of Stern's affiliate stations revoked.
Sept. 2, 1997: Stern is broadcast by Canadian stations for the first time.
November, 2001: Stern loses his last Canadian affiliate, Q107 in Toronto, after numerous listener complaints.
Feb. 25, 2004: Clear Channel Communications Inc., which owns radio stations throughout the United States, takes Stern off the air in six markets after an on-air discussion of anal sex.
April 8, 2004: Clear Channel pulls the plug on Stern on all of its stations after it gets hit with a $500,000 fine from the FCC related to Stern broadcasts.
Jan. 9, 2006: Stern begins broadcasting on Sirius satellite radio in the U.S., starting his show with a comment containing a U.S. federally banned expletive. |