Stern fans disappear

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 12th, 2006

An LAT article (free reg. req.) says that only a small fraction of Stern fans followed him when he made the switch from terrestrial radio to Sirius.

The self-proclaimed King of All Media once commanded a national audience of 12 million daily listeners before jumping to satellite in January. But since then, his kingdom has shrunk to a small fraction of that size. Meanwhile, the shock jock’s main replacements thus far have failed to hold very much of the former flock.

Were the numbers puffed out by the various local and national radio station sales forces? Were there a lot of self-identifying Stern fans who weren’t sufficiently dedicated (or not actually listening in the first place)? Just how reliable was this 12 million figure to begin with?

When we first heard that Howard was headed for the bird, for a giant bundle of cash, we crunched the numbers (which we thought were legit) and figured it was worth Sirius’ hard-earned cash. Now, of course, we admit we were wrong. The over paying of Stern might bring Sirius down, or, at the least, it may force them to merge with XM. XM’s bid to lure O & A listeners failed, but the price tag was a fraction of that for Stern.

As for the other local and/or syndie Stern subs not holding any of Stern’s old audience, we called that one. We still maintain that once the current crop of subs washes out, there will be local, unknown, but original, personalities or teams that will step up. They’ve been waiting for Stern to get out of their way for a decade or more, all the while honing their radio skills. Of course, radio execs with hazy memories think that all one has to do is “introduce” or “announce”the next big radio star and off he takes!

Bob & Tom will benefit. As will John Boy & Billy. And, along with them, standup will benefit, as each emphasizes comedy (the former moreso than the latter). Humor in general, and standup in particular, has been a big part of morning radio success. The collapse of Stern’s base might indicate that genuine humor is winning out over shock, cruelty and irony.

XM’s comedy channels, we hear, are among the most popular of their channels. O & A’s show, initially a premium offering, is now available for free. Further evidence that comedy is winning out over shock? When folks overcome their reluctance to pay for radio– and when they discover the richness of the offerings thereon, the numbers will puff out bigtime. No amount of marquee names or stunts will push them into satellite radio. And when those puffy numbers get even puffier, there will be even more comedy channels, exposing standup and standup comics to ever more listeners. Full disclosure: Four clips from the Male Half of the Staff’s act have been added to the XM 150 rotation and The Female Half of the Staff recently did battle with a crowd full of rambunctious O & A fans during a recent set.

When we pulled into Mesquite last week, we heard a local broadcast, perhaps out of Vegas, that was running “Five O’Clock Funnies,” or some such feature– a short snippet of recorded standup, sponsored this day by the Comedy Club at the Riv. We were somewhat annoyed that they didn’t back-announce the comic. One of the beauties of XM is that they often identify the comics beforehand and, right there on the radio unit, the name (and the name of the bit) appears on the LCD readout during the bit. If you don’t think that’s significant, consider that, on a recent evening, XM jock Joel Haas siad that he’s been getting a lot of requests for Tom Hester‘s “Fistful of Pills” routine. Comedy fans who display that amount of savvy are nothing but good for business.

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