Post by musicradio77 on Oct 8, 2005 20:45:17 GMT -5
By JEFF LEEDS
For four hours each weekday morning, the hosts of the "Preston & Steve" radio show in Philadelphia do a program that is by turns witty, ridiculous and - they hope - compelling enough to draw listeners away from their cross-dial rival Howard Stern.
Over the course of several station breaks recently, they bantered about the debate over "intelligent design" wracking a Pennsylvania school district and played a game in which the hosts answer listeners' trivia questions and - if they're wrong - confront the terror of being shot in the rear end with a BB gun during the broadcast.
With less than three months to go before Mr. Stern is expected to shift his show - belching, porn stars and all - to the subscription-based Sirius Satellite Radio service, dozens of competitors are making a less than subtle play for his listeners.
Since only a fraction of Mr. Stern's estimated six million current listeners are expected to pay the $12.95 monthly fee to hear him via satellite, his exit is sure to set off a free-for-all for Arbitron audience ratings in the three dozen cities where his show is now broadcast.
"When his audience scatters, it's hard to say where they're all going to go," said Preston Elliot, who appears on WMMR-FM in Philadelphia with his partner, Steve Morrison. "We hope that we're the logical choice."
In case listeners miss the point, WMMR has posted "Preston & Steve" billboards with the tagline, "No subscription required."
While Mr. Stern prepares to make the lucrative leap to paid radio - Sirius has agreed to pay $500 million over five years for his show - his competitors in the traditional radio business are moving to counter whoever replaces him on 27 stations owned by his current employer, the Infinity Broadcasting division of Viacom, and a smattering of affiliates. Local radio D.J.'s, who in some cases have trailed Mr. Stern for years, are waiting for a chance to shine. And syndicated personalities regard his departure as a golden opportunity to expand.
"The competitors are frothing at the mouth," said Mark Masters, chief executive of Talk Radio Network, an Oregon corporation that syndicates the Chicago-based program of Mancow Muller, which typically features rapid-fire interviews with celebrities and on-air pranks. In the last two weeks, a station that competes with Mr. Stern in Fresno, Calif., has added Mr. Muller's show.
Yet as Mr. Stern's audience appears up for grabs, none of the radio personalities jockeying for his title as the biggest name in morning radio seem eager to pursue the most risqué elements of his program. Mr. Muller, for instance, whose home station, WKQX, was fined $7,000 by the Federal Communications Commission in 2002 for his broadcasting of a sexually explicit parody song, has since shied away from such fare.
Even if the on-air talent is willing, however, many programmers say that since last year, when Janet Jackson's notorious Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" touched off a political firestorm over indecency on television, their radio stations have become less willing to broadcast the raunchy content that became the stock-in-trade for many of Mr. Stern's imitators.
Sexual jokes and bathroom humor may remain common on morning radio, but many of the personalities considered the most extreme have already been silenced. One of them is Bubba the Love Sponge, a radio host based in Tampa, Fla., who was fired by Clear Channel Communications last year after the Federal Communications Commission imposed a record $755,000 fine against the company for his show's graphic discussion of sex. (Bubba recently signed on to appear on one of Mr. Stern's two channels on Sirius.)
Federal regulations governing indecency do not extend to subscription-based services like Sirius, and the F.C.C. last year declined a petition from a traditional broadcaster to revise the rules. The commission has said it does not apply indecency rules to subscription-based services where children do not have the "indiscriminate access" they do to traditional broadcasts.
"It's very hard to have a broadcast property and risk your license over somebody that's going over the line," said Mimi Griswold, vice president for programming at Galaxy Communications, a radio company based in upstate New York. "The culture has changed. The F.C.C. makes it very difficult to be raunchy on terrestrial radio. Maybe people are going to be more creative."
It is too soon to tell if anyone will be able to create programming that can hold listeners' interest after the departure of Mr. Stern, whose contract with Infinity runs through December.
But shakeups are already under way in markets where broadcasters are dropping Mr. Stern from their schedules early. In Syracuse, one of four cities where Citadel Broadcasting dropped Mr. Stern's program last January for trumpeting his move to Sirius too loudly, rivals quickly pounced.
Coinciding with Mr. Stern's exit from Citadel's WAQX, for instance, WTKW, a rival rock station owned by Galaxy, hired back a former D.J. to help reassemble its long-running morning "Gomez & Dave" team. The station also paid for television commercials in which a chimpanzee outfitted with a long wig and glasses to resemble Mr. Stern - and a voice actor mimicking his voice - applaud the "Gomez & Dave" program.
As of this spring, WTKW had surged to first place in the market among 25-to-54-year-old men - Mr. Stern's core audience - while WAQX slid to third, according to Arbitron.
"I know that we have converted some people," said Ms. Griswold of Galaxy. "These people that have been tuning in to Howard Stern, they're out there floating, and you've got to get there and market and entice them to come to you. You can't just sit here."
Last year, Clear Channel, the nation's biggest broadcaster, dropped Mr. Stern in six markets amid indecency complaints, and found that its stations fell in the rankings.
In July, Bridge Ratings, a research company, said a survey of 2,650 Howard Stern listeners in seven major markets found that 23 percent planned to subscribe to Sirius. Another 41 percent said they would try other radio stations; only 5 percent said they would keep listening to the station where they now hear Mr. Stern. (The rest were undecided.)
Joel Hollander, chief executive of Infinity, said last week that the company had hired five or six hosts to replace Mr. Stern in various markets, though he declined to identify any of them. Mr. Hollander said Infinity had approached the comedian Jon Stewart and the television reporter Geraldo Rivera, though neither is among the final group.
In markets like Philadelphia, local disc jockeys who have long tried to gain ground on Mr. Stern are suddenly relishing their role as underdog.
"We're moving up the hill and they've got to protect their fortress," said Mr. Morrison of "Preston & Steve." "As far as battles go, I'd always rather be on this end."
For four hours each weekday morning, the hosts of the "Preston & Steve" radio show in Philadelphia do a program that is by turns witty, ridiculous and - they hope - compelling enough to draw listeners away from their cross-dial rival Howard Stern.
Over the course of several station breaks recently, they bantered about the debate over "intelligent design" wracking a Pennsylvania school district and played a game in which the hosts answer listeners' trivia questions and - if they're wrong - confront the terror of being shot in the rear end with a BB gun during the broadcast.
With less than three months to go before Mr. Stern is expected to shift his show - belching, porn stars and all - to the subscription-based Sirius Satellite Radio service, dozens of competitors are making a less than subtle play for his listeners.
Since only a fraction of Mr. Stern's estimated six million current listeners are expected to pay the $12.95 monthly fee to hear him via satellite, his exit is sure to set off a free-for-all for Arbitron audience ratings in the three dozen cities where his show is now broadcast.
"When his audience scatters, it's hard to say where they're all going to go," said Preston Elliot, who appears on WMMR-FM in Philadelphia with his partner, Steve Morrison. "We hope that we're the logical choice."
In case listeners miss the point, WMMR has posted "Preston & Steve" billboards with the tagline, "No subscription required."
While Mr. Stern prepares to make the lucrative leap to paid radio - Sirius has agreed to pay $500 million over five years for his show - his competitors in the traditional radio business are moving to counter whoever replaces him on 27 stations owned by his current employer, the Infinity Broadcasting division of Viacom, and a smattering of affiliates. Local radio D.J.'s, who in some cases have trailed Mr. Stern for years, are waiting for a chance to shine. And syndicated personalities regard his departure as a golden opportunity to expand.
"The competitors are frothing at the mouth," said Mark Masters, chief executive of Talk Radio Network, an Oregon corporation that syndicates the Chicago-based program of Mancow Muller, which typically features rapid-fire interviews with celebrities and on-air pranks. In the last two weeks, a station that competes with Mr. Stern in Fresno, Calif., has added Mr. Muller's show.
Yet as Mr. Stern's audience appears up for grabs, none of the radio personalities jockeying for his title as the biggest name in morning radio seem eager to pursue the most risqué elements of his program. Mr. Muller, for instance, whose home station, WKQX, was fined $7,000 by the Federal Communications Commission in 2002 for his broadcasting of a sexually explicit parody song, has since shied away from such fare.
Even if the on-air talent is willing, however, many programmers say that since last year, when Janet Jackson's notorious Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" touched off a political firestorm over indecency on television, their radio stations have become less willing to broadcast the raunchy content that became the stock-in-trade for many of Mr. Stern's imitators.
Sexual jokes and bathroom humor may remain common on morning radio, but many of the personalities considered the most extreme have already been silenced. One of them is Bubba the Love Sponge, a radio host based in Tampa, Fla., who was fired by Clear Channel Communications last year after the Federal Communications Commission imposed a record $755,000 fine against the company for his show's graphic discussion of sex. (Bubba recently signed on to appear on one of Mr. Stern's two channels on Sirius.)
Federal regulations governing indecency do not extend to subscription-based services like Sirius, and the F.C.C. last year declined a petition from a traditional broadcaster to revise the rules. The commission has said it does not apply indecency rules to subscription-based services where children do not have the "indiscriminate access" they do to traditional broadcasts.
"It's very hard to have a broadcast property and risk your license over somebody that's going over the line," said Mimi Griswold, vice president for programming at Galaxy Communications, a radio company based in upstate New York. "The culture has changed. The F.C.C. makes it very difficult to be raunchy on terrestrial radio. Maybe people are going to be more creative."
It is too soon to tell if anyone will be able to create programming that can hold listeners' interest after the departure of Mr. Stern, whose contract with Infinity runs through December.
But shakeups are already under way in markets where broadcasters are dropping Mr. Stern from their schedules early. In Syracuse, one of four cities where Citadel Broadcasting dropped Mr. Stern's program last January for trumpeting his move to Sirius too loudly, rivals quickly pounced.
Coinciding with Mr. Stern's exit from Citadel's WAQX, for instance, WTKW, a rival rock station owned by Galaxy, hired back a former D.J. to help reassemble its long-running morning "Gomez & Dave" team. The station also paid for television commercials in which a chimpanzee outfitted with a long wig and glasses to resemble Mr. Stern - and a voice actor mimicking his voice - applaud the "Gomez & Dave" program.
As of this spring, WTKW had surged to first place in the market among 25-to-54-year-old men - Mr. Stern's core audience - while WAQX slid to third, according to Arbitron.
"I know that we have converted some people," said Ms. Griswold of Galaxy. "These people that have been tuning in to Howard Stern, they're out there floating, and you've got to get there and market and entice them to come to you. You can't just sit here."
Last year, Clear Channel, the nation's biggest broadcaster, dropped Mr. Stern in six markets amid indecency complaints, and found that its stations fell in the rankings.
In July, Bridge Ratings, a research company, said a survey of 2,650 Howard Stern listeners in seven major markets found that 23 percent planned to subscribe to Sirius. Another 41 percent said they would try other radio stations; only 5 percent said they would keep listening to the station where they now hear Mr. Stern. (The rest were undecided.)
Joel Hollander, chief executive of Infinity, said last week that the company had hired five or six hosts to replace Mr. Stern in various markets, though he declined to identify any of them. Mr. Hollander said Infinity had approached the comedian Jon Stewart and the television reporter Geraldo Rivera, though neither is among the final group.
In markets like Philadelphia, local disc jockeys who have long tried to gain ground on Mr. Stern are suddenly relishing their role as underdog.
"We're moving up the hill and they've got to protect their fortress," said Mr. Morrison of "Preston & Steve." "As far as battles go, I'd always rather be on this end."