lol, howard stern may get bleeped (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Opie and Anthony were playing clips from his
Sirius show where he was taking shots at the boys
and XM radio in general. That I heard.

O&A were pointing out the instances were Howard
wasn't exactly getting his facts correct.

 

[Brent T]

I listen to Sterny every day and I listen to his entire show.

All he said about O&A were that he felt bad for them, mainly because they have to constantly attach themselves to Howard and his show. How at his final show they only could muster around 20-30 people to show up.

He then went on about XM and how HE THINKs Sirius is being wiser because they are sinking more money into content.

What did he say that wasn't opinion based and was wrong ?

 

[Monty B]

I can second exactly what Brent T said. Howard has mentioned XM/O & A exactly one time and that lasted all of 30 seconds. It seems to me that O & A are obsessed with Howard and just a little bit jealous. There is a rumor floating around that in March 2006 Arbitron will begin tracking ratings for individual satellite channels. That should put to rest once and for all who the top draw in the business is. I'm going out on a limb here and saying that Howards audience is going to prove to be slightly larger.

 

[WillG]

I don't think that's exactly true. O&A may talk alot and rail against Howard. I don't think it's jealousy. They have a huge axe to grind with Stern and now that they finally have the freedom to talk about him again, they talk about him. I have yet to see a Stern fan defend or comment about the fact that he went to Mel Karmazin and had other Jocks at Infinity barred from mentioning him in any way. This is a guy who made his bones tormenting and railing against other Jocks who were in competition with him. He spent most of his career railing against Imus because he treated him like a dick when he came to WNBC. Howard treated O&A even worse when they came to Infinity. Why is it that when O&A talk about Howard they are "Obsessed and Jealous" Obviously there are some Stern fans in here (myself included, but not as much as I used to be) so I would like to hear they have to say about the gag orders that he had imposed and the other hypocritical shit he did involving O&A.

As far as the number of listeners go, they have never had any illusions that Howard has a huge audience. If they were to overtake Howard in listeners, would it make them very happy? Of course. If they don't, I doubt they are going to lose much sleep over it.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Will makes excellent points that are
VERY truthful.

The reason O&A spend a lot of time going
after Stern is because for years, they couldn't.

I have talked about this many times before...

O&A grew up listening and admiring Howard Stern.
It was never their intention to ever be on the
opposing end.

This entire war between O&A and Stern started
with Howard -- a man that was so concerned with
any upcoming talent that may overtake his that
he made certain that talent was buried. Will G
is just as much in the "know" as the rest of
O&A fans that have heard the Howard stories over
the years. Those who are not listeners of O&A
have trouble understanding the situation.

Despite the underhanded crap that Howard pulled
against O&A and other jocks, O&A were forbidden
to talk about Howard on the air. Even after the
boys resorted to using "code words" instead of
Howard's name, the self-proclaimed King of all
Media was continued crying to Mel Karmizan and
had further gag orders issued.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that Howard has
spent his career making viscious attacks on other
people. Yet, when people turn around and do the
same to him it's no longer fair game. This is one
of the reasons I ceased being a Howard Stern fan.

 

[Chris]

As said, I have no interest in Stern.

That having been said, if O&A discuss Stern a lot, even just to rail on him, SIRIUS has to be pleased. You've got XM forums devoting tons of space to "did you hear what Howard said?" and so forth. That's good for SIRIUS because it highlights their product in XM forums.

Even if O&A "tear Stern Apart" as Ron and others have asserted (and I don't know, don't listen to either) their repeated references to him as well as XM fans repeated need to discuss Howard continues to point out the difference in the networks. That's good for SIRIUS.

I don't find SIRIUS forums discussing "Did you hear what O&A said.." as much as I see XM forums discussing "Don't bet on Howard" "Howard is the boogieman" "O&A take on Howard". So, I'll let this "XM" forum continue to spend it's time while it's top threads are discussing what SIRIUS is doing

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Chris,

Good words of wisdom.

And if none of this truly interests you
then I suspect in the future you'll be much
busier within the Sirius forum.

 

[Chris_T]

Ron or any other O&A listeners,

I was wondering if O&A commented on the FCC's potential legislation on regulating satellite radio and cable tv. Even though Stern may be the catalyst for this, don't think the boys won't be affected by the wackos who want to regulate a paid service. Just curious to see if it was discussed or commented on.

Chris

 

[Monty B]

My question to the O & A fans is where is the proof that all these behind closed doors meetings to censor them took place? Just because they say it happened does that make it so? Why would Howard devote so much time to censoring a radio show with only a fraction of his listeners? As far as I can tell they were never really a threat to him ratings wise. It seems to me that their rampant bashing of the guy on top is a cry for attention and publicity. If they are as funny and as talented as they claim to be then their show should speak for itself.

 

[WillG]

Obviously none of us were there, but, as far as anyone knows, which includes Infinity jocks and the press, it is an absolute fact that they were barred from even merely mentioning Howards name, or as Ron pointed out, even talking indirectly about Stern by using code words and such. I highly doubt this is something that is made up. The order had to come from somewhere and even if, and I stress the word "even" the gag order had nothing to do with complaints from Howard, why didn't Howard say to Mel "Forget it, let them say whatever they want about me"

According to O&A after they renewed their contract which stipulated that they could again talk about Howard (which was a major point that was documented in the press) they were still barred by upper management by way of threatening that they would fire station level management and pretty much everyone else involved with the show that they legally could. Once again, this seems to me like too strong claim to have been entirely made up.

As for not being a threat to Howard in the ratings, I'm not sure that is true either. People have to remember that right before O&A were taken off the air at WNEW, they were becoming very popular. They were syndicated to over a dozen major markets and were number one in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. (and maybe more) in their time slot among the more important listening demographic, Men 18-49. Infinity seemed to think that O&A could be a threat. They held on to them for 2 years and paid out their entire contract without them ever being on the air again after the St. Pat's Cathedral incident. The only way they would have been let out of their contract would be to agree to never talk about "anyone at Infinity" over the air. I have no doubt that at the time O&A had a large amount of listeners that also listened to Stern who would have stuck with O&A had they ever gone head to head in Terrestrial radio.

And as I have pointed out, rampant bashing of other Jocks is something Howard has made a career out of himself. Was he "crying for attention" and not "letting his show speak for itself when he was railing against Imus, DeBella, Mark and Brian, Mancow etc. Has he been "Letting his show speak for itself" when he was...wait....still is rating about the FCC and the Government virtually every day? Is he "letting his show speak for itself" by blasting any other jock who ever told a dick joke as a clone? Was he letting his show speak for itself when he said he has not been able to do good radio for the last 10 years (the same 10 years when O&A were building their careers and making a name for themselves under the same FCC guidelines) If anything, I would say it is O&A who were doing a better job of letting their show speak for itself while Howard was just bleeding on his cross.

In spite of all that is known with Howard's hypocracies, I don't know why fans think of him as utterly infallible. I don't hate Howard, I have always enjoyed his show. But I believe he has pulled crybaby crap behind the scenes and am willing to recognize that.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Chris,

The only thing I have heard Opie and Anthony talk
about over the past few days is that they are not
being censored nor asked to tone down their show.

They made light of this by discussing some of the
dirtiest things they could possibly do then played
sounds of crickets to indicate management's response.

According to the boys, management has never blinked
any time they have pushed the envelope.

This dislike towards Howard isn't a XM vs. SIRIUS
issue as some of you may think. I also realize that
unless you listen to O&A it's hard to understand our
dislike towards Howard because really, you never heard
the "other" side of the story.

While Howard may be keeping his comments about O&A
to a minimum since coming to Sirius, he was certainly
talking about them more frequently while on FM radio.

Any O&A listener who hears the phrase "I don't care!"
will instantly know what I am talking about. Howard
went into long, on-air speeches about the boys and
how much he didn't care about what they were saying
about him.

O&A just chuckled, citing Howard was giving them and
XM radio a lot of exposure.

In the end, it's all juvenile. Yet, it gives us a
bit of "hot topic" to discuss here amongst fellow fans.

 

[Gui A]

Nope. That's Jack Thompson.

 

[JeremyErwin]

One and the same


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