Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
January 1999 – For the last six weeks Howard Stern has continued the trend that began with his premiere TV show last August – every Saturday night he finishes third behind the competitors he promised to trounce. Worse, the shock-jock’s nasty subject matter has led nine stations to dump the late night show.
According to Nielsen Media Research, The Howard Stern Radio Show has a meager 1.5 rating, which represents just over 1.5 million households. That means, says TV Guide, that Stern’s Saturday night programming attracts half the audience of Fox’s MAD TV and a quarter of NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) viewership.
The Howard Stern Radio Show, the name for his TV program, is produced by the CBS Television Stations Group and marketed by Eyemark Entertainment, CBS’s syndication arm.
A number of stations have dropped Stern: Lubbock, Texas; San Diego; Phoenix; St. Louis; Portland, Oregon; Fort Meyers, Florida; Knoxville, Tennessee; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama. All cited the show’s raunchy antics as the reason, and so far no competitors in those markets have come forward to pick up The Howard Stern Radio Show.
While not yet dropping The Howard Stern Radio Show, WBDC-TV in Washington, D.C., pushed it two hours further into the night, moving it from its original 11 p.m. slot to 1 a.m. Once again, the raunchy content of the program was the reason for the station’s action.
Stern’s pornographic programming doesn’t seem to have any limits. In October, for example, segments of the show included an allegedly dying man who eats marshmallow Fluff off a woman’s body; two women who come into the studio for a “Fake an Orgasm Contest;” and female contestants (and one transsexual) who are judged by a Howard Stern panel to determine their qualifications to get into Playboy magazine.
In Birmingham, CBS affiliate WIAT-TV general manager Eric Land said the final straw for his station came when, in one segment of the show, Stern shaved a woman’s pubic hair. Although the woman’s genital area was blurred, later another was shown baring her breasts without the blurring.
Land said, “I saw the show and thought it was abhorrent. I made the decision…after watching the last Howard Stern show that will air on this station.”
While Land initially defended his station’s airing of The Howard Stern Radio Show, he has also complained to CBS about the program’s vulgarity. But, said Land, “It got worse. We lost patience.”
How has Stern responded to stations dropping his show? When station managers called with suggestions to tone down the lurid content, Stern said he told them, “Take your suggestions and shove it!…I will provide a show every week until there are no stations left."
CBS top dog supports Stern
How can Stern remain so in-your-face in his perpetuation of perversion? Because at the top of the CBS food chain stands Mel Karmazin, the new president and CEO of CBS and a firm supporter of Stern.
Karmazin, in fact, has had his fortunes tied closely to Stern’s rising star for 13 years. A co-founder of Infinity Broadcasting in 1981, he recruited Stern in 1985 after the shock-jock was fired by WNBC radio. Under Karmazin’s wing, Stern expanded from being only a New York controversy to a controversy in 35 other cities.
Phyllis Furman of the New York Daily News said, “Along the way, [Karmazin] transformed radio from a backwater industry into one of the hottest businesses of the 1990s – and amassed $200 million.”
Westinghouse/CBS purchased Infinity last year for $5 billion, and Karmazin then began his own rise to power at the network. Prior to becoming the top dog at CBS, Karmazin ran the 14 CBS owned-and-operated stations and oversaw the company’s 77 radio stations.
So with Karmazin at the helm, there appears to be little likelihood that Stern will be restrained. For one thing, the CBS CEO is fully aware of Stern’s lewd on-air persona. Infinity recently settled with the government and paid $1.7 million in fines for some of Stern’s past broadcasts, which the Federal Communications Commission ruled indecent.
Sadly, Karmazin seems to be in complete philosophical agreement with the type of smut peddled by his pal Stern. In an interview with Electronic Weekly in which he vehemently defended Stern’s right to say what he wants to on air, Karmazin said, “I believe we’re in the broadcasting business, broadcasting means putting on programming that applies to all kinds of people, not just to kids.”
One executive in media advertising told TV Guide, “Stern knows he can get away with virtually anything because he has Mel’s support. How do you pull the plug on Howard, who is essentially the foundation of [CBS’s] radio business?”
AFA of Michigan Director Bill Johnson thinks he knows the way. “Stern’s not going to suddenly change his ways, and CBS, at least with Karmazin at the top spot, isn’t going to rush to axe Stern’s show,” said Johnson. “That leaves the average person in all these communities where Stern is aired. Call the station that airs his show, and contact the advertisers that sponsor Stern’s filth.”
Johnson is heading The AFA Stern Project, which monitors both Stern’s radio broadcasts and television programs, contacting advertisers to let them know the lewd nature of what they’re promoting.
If people do nothing, Johnson said, Stern will continue to plumb the depths of depravity. When the shock-jock went on the air in Madison, Wisconsin, for example, he was asked by local reporters if there was a line he would not cross. Stern said, “I am sick and tired of safe broadcasting….I will do what I d--- well please and I will not be told what to do by anybody. Why should there be a line?” 
