NEW YORK – He took pot shots at free radio, the Federal Communications Commission, even TV personality Pat O’Brien. Howard Stern debuted on satellite radio Monday, stirring up trouble and talking dirty.
But this time, he won’t get bleeped.
“I don’t compete on terrestrial radio anymore,” said Stern, who is finally free of government decency laws on Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. “It’s so over.”
The media maverick began his new radio show by putting to rest rumors – in true satellite style – that he got married to his longtime girlfriend, model Beth Ostrosky.
“I am not married. It’s a nice feeling that we get along great. We’re very happy, and I don’t want to (blank) it up,” Stern said.
Stern has promised everything from stripper poles to live sex on his new show. But he used only a moderate amount of swearing and said his show was more about ideas, not the f-word. Cursing, he said, would be part of the natural progression of speech.
“I feel this is a culmination of dreams for me,” Stern said in an on-air news conference.
“The only limit is our mind.”
At the time his October 2004 deal with Sirius was announced, the company said it could be worth up to $500 million over five years to headline two Sirius channels.
Stern broadcast his last FM radio show on Dec. 16 as thousands of fans gathered outside his New York City studio.
At the start of the show Monday, Stern dished up some phone sex with Playboy bunny Heidi Cortez, who has her own phone-sex nighttime show lined up on Sirius. He also played tapes of the infamous obscene phone messages left by O’Brien before the TV host entered alcohol rehab.
Stern also introduced George Takei as his new on-air personality. Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on “Star Trek” and who last year publicly said he is gay, will serve as announcer. After the first week, he will record segments for the show but will not be in the studio.
“The revolution has begun” in new radio, Takei said Monday.
Even before his first day on the job, the shock jock recruited listeners for the $13-per-month service: The Sirius audience expanded from 600,000 at the time the switch was announced to more than 3.3 million subscribers, Stern said Monday. At the same time, Sirius stock has roughly doubled.
That’s hardly a surprise. Stern’s wildly popular syndicated show proved a cash cow for Infinity Broadcasting, now the CBS Radio unit of CBS Corp., raking in about $100 million in annual advertising revenues.
Stern had frequently tested and sparred with the regulatory FCC during his 25-year run on the public airwaves, often having his morning show interrupted by censors.
Weeks after Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” Clear Channel Communications Inc. yanked Stern from six stations amid an FCC crackdown. Stern signed with Sirius five months later.
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