Howard Stern recently bitched about how not as many people followed him to satellite radio as he anticipated. With a previous audience of 14 million on FM radio, his new audience is a lesser 4 million subscribers. He also complained that he should be at 20 million subscribers, which I believe would be impossible, since his audience is now being based on subscribers not listeners that sponsors are able to reach. An office of 12 listeners tuning into Howard is reduced to 1 Howard subscriber sharing with the 12 listeners.
I was one of many people who were ready to go to Sirius at the zero hour of Howard's launch but got cockblocked at the last minute by finding out I was not able to listen online as advertised. In order to support Howard at the start, I'd have to buy the satellite receiver along with a number of other accessories to make Howard as accessible as he was before, plus the subscription fee. It's like cable TV with a HUGE fucking set-up fee. It's basically Sirius's fault, since I am willing to pay for a subscription but Sirius is unable to deliver the product. After reading about Howard's comment, I checked Sirius's website and noticed a listen option in their Talk lineup list followed by a prompt for subscriber login. Since my trial with Sirius expired, I have to make up a new e-mail address using Krackmonster to try out Sirius again and see if you can now actually listen to Howard online, allowing me support non-corporate radio without sacrificing an entire paycheck to do so.
An even bigger reason why Howard fans didn't follow if you can't already guess: People are POOR! With the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer under Bush rule, the oppressed worker population that Howard appeals to can't afford the 'cable TV of radio' especially not right away. but just as cable became more accessible to the more common household over that past couple of decades, it's all subject to change as Sirius projects to beat XM in subscribers this year. |
