Wednesday, March 01, 2006

CBS v. Howard Stern

Here's how media blogger Jeff Jarvis views CBS's $500 million lawsuit against Howard Stern. The suit alleges, in part, that the broadcaster misused airtime on the network promoting his new satellite radio venture...

What a crock, what a childish humiliation for CBS and Leslie Moonves. Stern could not have been more open and the network could have stopped him anytime. Throughout that year, many in the industry wondered why they didn't. But they didn't. And the reason for that is apparent: They wanted to eke every last rating point out of Stern because they knew that once he left, they'd be screwed.

And screwed, they are. These idiots without ears put David Lee Roth on the air. He is an utter disaster, utterly unlistenable, and the ratings prove that. Roth has lost three-quarters of Stern's audience and the ratings are in justifiable freefall. The picture in the precious 18-to-34 demographic -- the audience that CBS built the so-called Free FM to retain -- is downright devastating: Arbitrend ratings released yesterday show that in January, Roth's first month, WFNY's morning share among its target audience of 18-to-34-year-olds fell from 13.8% to 1.3%. ...Stern replacements in Chicago and Los Angeles, Rover and Adam Carolla, also fell sharply.

These bozos couldn't make a podcast.

As Stern points out, he couldn't have been hurting CBS that badly if they kept him on the air for a year, and booked him on Letterman and "60 Minutes."

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