Satellite Radio

Howard Stern is jumping to Sirius satellite radio for $500 million.



That's not a typo. Well, as with most of these kinds of announcements, the deal is "valued" at $500 million. That means that a big hunk of it is probably tied to the number of listeners he brings to the party. Sirius, the satellite company, hopes to get 1 million of his current 12 million listeners to jump to satellite radio.



It occurred to me that I haven’t tried out satellite radio as a “pay radio” option, but then I remembered I got it for free once when I rented a car in LA.



The experience wasn’t perfect. We spent too much time in tunnels and parking garages in LA driving back and forth between the west and east sides of the Hollywood hills and the reception was interrupted too often. Also, it was hard to figure out what the buttons on the radio actually did, since it was integrated with a regular radio. It's not something you want to do while you are driving - you'll crash.



Interestingly, Sirius is hoping to use Stern to bring in more advertising revenue. I think if I’m paying for my radio service then I don’t want any ads. Even the little ads on NPR bug me, especially that Microsoft ad: “Our passion and your ability to do stuff and our ability to write code plus your future equals a really awkward sound bite.”



Anyway, the best result of all of this is that Howard Stern is giving a big fuck-you to the FCC by getting out of their jurisdiction. That’s way cool.