2/26/2004
FROM STEM TO STERN
Glenn Reynolds opines about Clear Channel dropping Howard Stern’s show:
It’s hard for me to get too exercised about this. I’m opposed to censorship, but Stern was “censored” by his employer. I’m capable of getting exercised about such things, sometimes, but not this time. And if Rush Limbaugh had been canned over the kind of racial comments Stern made, and allowed on the air, nobody would be crying “censorship.” Instead they’d be saying that it showed the inherent racism of his show and his audience.
Well?
it: This whole mess shows the basic boorishness of Stern’s audience. Just like the Opie and Anthony incident showed the basic boorishness of their audience. You can fault Stern, O&A, Mancow, et al., for pandering to the basest instincts of the basest among us, but the fact remains, they only do so because it always works. Talking in the basest and vilest sexual and racial terms always draws a huge audience.
For years, Howard Stern has been an actor playing the part of “Howard Stern,” a prominent New York radio personality whose persona is essentially a caricature of the jerkiness inherent in many people. There’s a long, sad history of people attempting to poke fun at the lowest common denominator and failing miserably, because the lowest common denominator turned out to be even lower than they had imagined. This goes back at least as far as Archie Bunker, with stops along the way at David Bowie’s Thin White Duke, “Beavis and Butt-Head” (idolized by the very audience it was intended to mock), Homer Simpson, and even Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner has publicily admitted that “Marilyn” is a character he plays). All of these characters were conceived as commentaries on undesirable attributes; all of them wound up being embraced for their inherent wrongness.
“Howard Stern” is just another example of this, and he’s just the latest to become a joke that isn’t particularly funny anymore. There’s almost certainly some political motivation behind the timing of ClearChannel’s actions–but you could also say that they’re just trying to stay ahead of the curve and let Stern go out like Barry Sanders, instead of Michael Jordan.
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There is one factor we have yet to catch on to, radio is now a niche market. Radio is no longer our main source of information, or even a major source of information.
What influence radio has on our lives and our politics is thanks to those who impart to it an importance it really hasn’t had since the early 1950s. Were it not for TV and its need for material Rush Limbaugh would be living in a studio apartment in Hoboken.
News channels think he’s important and talk about him. Potential listeners hears this and go check him out. Most get turned off. A few stay and become fans. In the long run there’s enough of an audience to support Rush in the style to which he’s become accustomed. But…
It never really gets to be as big as his influence would seem to suggest.
Doesn’t have to. The economics of radio broadcasting are such that even a moderate audience is not necessary for a station to turn a profit. So folks such as Limbaugh can afford to cater to a narrow demographic. Add in the fact they are syndicated to networks with effective monopolies in many radio markets, and you get a situation where the station carrying the show has no need to compete with other stations in the same area, and so can focus on a small segment of listeners.
Thus you get the same situation you get with any other monopoly, a limited set of poor quality choices.
The owners will claim that they provide variety. If you don’t like the music on one station, you can tune to another. Trouble is, there’s no real choice in any musical genre, no real choice in talk. With no competition stations can more narrowly focus on a target audience, whereas with competition it becomes necessary to provide variety to gain a larger audience, and so greater ad revenues, than the other guys.
I could get into the whole fragmentation of society thing, but I shall refrain.
And that is why Clear Channel’s dumping of Howard Stern is a bad thing. Has nothing to do with free speech and a lot to do with business practices and bad decisions at the government level.
Besides, if there was real competition in the major radio markets someone like Stern with his LCD targeting really wouldn’t last that long. His style of humor would drive too many listeners away and cost any station airing his show too much in advertising revenue.
Comment by Alan Kellogg — 2/26/2004 @ 6:22 pm
So how do I get Celine Dion off the radio, permanently?
Comment by Mark Hasty — 2/26/2004 @ 9:07 pm
Not even. Studio apartments in Hoboken are expensive.
Comment by Vidiot — 2/26/2004 @ 11:23 pm
Great post, Mark. When “personalities” like Howard Stern and Bob Grant began to take over the NYC airwaves in 1983, the race to the bottom was underway. I grimace when I recall enduring the first season of Rush in 1987-88 while working as a twenty-something aerospace engineer in a lab of UAW technicians, mostly Reagan Democrats.
Alan Kellogg: agreed.
OT: You live in Hoboken, vidiot? I rented a 700 sq ft three-bedroom apt. uptown on Park Ave. from 1986-97. Five-story railroad walk-up, cold water, gas-on-gas. It was $600 when I moved in, which was considered extortionate at the time. With rent control I was paying only $700 when I moved out. How much does a place like that go for nowadays, $2500?
I sure miss that place, but I suppose what I miss about Hoboken no longer exists.
Comment by beastofsound — 2/27/2004 @ 6:23 am
To continue the derail (sorry, Mark!), I don’t live in Hoboken — I live across the river (actually, across two rivers) in Astoria, Queens. Have been over to Hoboken a coupla times, though, and it seems nice. From what I understand, Hoboken (like Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights) rents are just about on a par with Manhattan rents.
Which is why I’m in a non-hip borough. (Quizeens repraZENT!)
Comment by Vidiot — 2/27/2004 @ 11:31 am
I don’t mind comments drifting off-topic . . . that’s what they’re for.
I always thought that if I had to live in NYC, I’d probably want to live on Staten Island. How stupid am I, in a general sense?
Comment by Mark Hasty — 2/27/2004 @ 2:05 pm
Dunno. Never been out there…which is kind of pathetic, considering that I’ve lived in NYC for almost two years now. (I keep meaning to go, just to ride the ferry and maybe go to a Staten Island Yankees game.)
Staten Island sounds good, but it’s a bit remote…a friend who used to live there liked the suburban feel, but hated to wait for 30+ minutes for the ferry when returning home late at night.
I’ve fantasized about living on Roosevelt Island, a long, narrow (800 feet or so) island in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. It’s the only place in NYC so far that actually reminds you that the city is essentially an archipelago. Plus I could take that cool tram to work.
Comment by Vidiot — 2/27/2004 @ 3:30 pm
As my media law professor said last night, he used to live in a high rise condo in manhattan overlooking the vast expanse of new york city and gave it up because he couldn’t do what he wanted to do. He knew he had to leave when he found himself playing tennis at midnight under a bubble roof on the river for $75 AN HOUR (!).
Now, he plays for $1 at the campus courts any time he feels like it.
I do not think there is enough money in the world to coax me to live in the heaving mass of humanity that is the most egotistical city in the US.
Comment by bryan — 2/27/2004 @ 5:42 pm
Oh, it’s a truly wonderful city. There are some incredible egotists/jerks/whatever here, but it’s not everyone. Noo Yawk is not without its quiet places and its charms.
Comment by Vidiot — 2/27/2004 @ 7:14 pm
I misread the second link and was trying to figure out what Opie and Andy could have done to raise your hackles…
Comment by James Joyner — 3/1/2004 @ 8:13 pm
Andy was soft on crime. That always bothered me.
Comment by Mark Hasty — 3/2/2004 @ 6:44 pm