Years and years and years ago, I listened to Howard Stern on the radio. He was funny. Really funny.
And then, over a period of months, he shifted emphasis. The material became more raunchy, more of what would come to be called the “Shock Jock” mentality. It annoyed me. He seemed better than this type of material. As if doing real humor was too hard, and he was going for cheap gags about flatulence and breasts. Plus the major problem with shock humor is that you have to keep upping the ante, until it’s all about the gross out rather than anything approaching wit.
So I started listening to other stuff.
It’s now years later and Stern is saying that the show will probably be folding its tent altogether as the Clear Channel dumps it from major markets and the FCC issues bug bucks fines for indecency.
What I’d like to know is this:
When in the intervening twenty-plus years since I last listened to Howard Stern were station selection controls removed from radios?
Have they become overly complicated? Have people lost the ability to manipulate them? Is every radio in the world locked in to the stations carrying his show so that people have no choice but to listen?
I mean, I don’t understand why this isn’t a no-brainer. I don’t think Howard Stern is funny. So I don’t listen to him. What the hëll kind of mentality are we living in where it’s decided that Howard Stern isn’t funny and he must be punished for it or driven off the air or both? This makes zero sense to me. Am I that much smarter, better, niftier than so many others that I just say, “I don’t think that’s funny, I’m not going to listen anymore?” and then do that? I’m unclear on why everyone can’t do that, rather than decide on behalf of those people who *do* like Howard Stern that they shouldn’t be allowed to hear it.
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People in New York went through a similar scandal last year. I don’t know how many people remember the Opie and Anthony show, but it was similar shock jock kind of stuff that Howard Stern does, but they had a variety of comedian friends that would come in and help them. To be honest the show was hit or miss. There were days where it was so funny, I had to go online to download the whole segment because i needed to hear the parts that didn’t overlap with my drive home, and there were days where i put a CD on instead.
They did a stunt that the Catholic church disliked, and were forced off the air and basically blacklisted from getting jobs at any other station.
Voltaire once wrote “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will fight to the death for your write to say it.”
I feel similarly. Did I agree with that particular stunt? No. In fact I shut my radio off that day when I heard it, but I think that they should have been allowed to express themselves, and simply apologize to the church and go about their business.
It’s like the age old question of the KKK rally. When the KKK comes to your town for a rally, you have 3 choices. 1) put on your robes and join them 2) oppress their right to freedom of speech and not give them the necessary permits or 3) let them rally and allow the people of your town the opportunity to express themselves as well with a counter-protest. The FCC is taking approach 2 whereas I interpret the constitution as clearly outlining approach 3.
Delurking for some insider scuttlebut:
They did a stunt that the Catholic church disliked, and were forced off the air and basically blacklisted from getting jobs at any other station.
Actually, a friend of mine who works in the industry told me that Howard Stern used his influence with Mel Karmizan to force them off the air because they aired some dirty laundry about one of Stern’s daughters. Also, Infinity refused to let O&A out of their contract as a delaying tactic to prevent Clear Channel from picking them up and putting them on morning drive against Howard.
So O&A are really not symptomatic of the whole censorship thing.
However, this does not negate the seriousness of situation, since even my friend admits that the way the FCC indecency regulations work, not one radio station will know if they crossed the line until after they have been cited and fined. There are no preventative remedies that can be taken, outside of refusing to allow DJs to speak at all. And even then, it doesn’t prevent the FCC to cite the music that is being played, or the ads that are being aired.
Where does it end?
Re-lurking
If memory serves O&A’s little stunt was two listeners having sex somewhere in some church, I can’t recall waht part of the church as it’s been too long…
the contest in question on O & A was called sex for Sam. couple got points for having sex in various public places and could get a “2 point conversion” if it was in the back 9 instead of the front 9. The team with the most points got a free tour of the Sam Adams brewery and an invite to the party O & A were having there. There were dozens of sites on the list and one was a church. One couple decided to have sex in the pews of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and when they got caught said, “Oh, it’s Ok for priests and boys, but not for a consenting couple?” the church freaked out, and as a result, O & A were forced off the air.
I used to listen to OandA when they were on here in Boston. They were always sort of annoying and juvenile, but when I was an annoying juvenile, I liked them. I think they got canned in Boston because as an April Fool’s joke, they announced the mayor of Boston had died or something. That’s more or less a rumor because I didn’t hear the show. I did hear that the NY church sex stunt was supposedly a set up (i.e. the couple wasn’t really having sex), which is amusing considering they spent a lot of time complaining about “fake” radio. But that’s really neither here nor their when it comes to censorship, because it doesn’t matter if they sucked or were annoying, censorship is censorship.
Monkeys.