The Infinite Dial

I've been rather amazed by the way the radio industry trades have covered the story of Arbitron's first release of national Satellite Radio ratings. They correctly point out that Howard Stern's total weekly audience is a tiny fraction of what it once was. But the spin is somehow that this is proof of Howard having made a mistake by leaving 'over-the-air' radio.

Let's do a little math here. If we accept Arbitron's estimate of Howard's weekly cume audience of 1.2million, and multiply that by the standard $12.95 per month subscription, we get over $185million. OK -- Sirius offers certain deals and the average rate is probably less than $12.95. And maybe some of those listeners would have subscribed to Sirius without Howard. Still -- is there any doubt that just on this calculation alone Howard's show is profitable? Probably wildly so?

And that doesn't even count what Howard has done for Sirius at large. This was a company that was in 'serious' danger of becoming 'Betamax' before they hired Howard. They lagged XM badly in terms of market awareness and penetration. Howard closed the gap in a matter of days. So much did he change the battle that Sirius will now be the acquiring entity if the merger goes through.

And yet the other argument one hears is: "But Howard couldn't turn Sirius profitable." Unfair as well. How can one evaluate him other than on what he has done himself? Sirius not being profitable cannot be tagged to Howard. The 'Sirius but not Howard' piece must be incredibly money-losing -- because Howard is making them money.

It is kind of a shame in sort of a metaphysical sense that millions of people don't hear Howard any more. But from a business sense, Howard continues to show himself as one of the most potent entities this medium has seen in our time (Rush Limbaugh being the only other similar force).