You’d think Howard Stern would be a happy camper: he made the switch to satellite radio, has gotten tons of press and lots of cable broadcast time — and much of it has been highly positive. Those who are blasting him are those who didn’t like him anyway, but it’s clear the news media likes him and many fellow broadcasters respect his talent.
But he apparently isn’t, the AP reports:
Howard Stern is angry more fans haven’t followed him to satellite radio. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 52-year-old shock jock lashes out at those of his fan base who haven’t made the transition to Sirius Satellite Radio.
n January, Stern moved his popular and bawdy morning show to the subscription satellite radio provider.
“I was just at my psychiatrist and I said, `I just got great news: We hit the 4 million mark. And I’m angry. It should be 20 million,'” Stern says in the magazine, on newsstands Monday.
“It’s insulting to me that everyone hasn’t come with me. I take it personally,” he says.
“I want to say to my audience … `You haven’t come with me yet? How dare you? We’re up to wild, crazy stuff, the show has never sounded better. You cheap bastard!'”
But he’s as media savvy as ever: it’s clearly a call to fans of his previous show to get with it and get satellite radio. And what better forum than Entertainment Weekly? His comments were sure to generate an AP story such as the one linked above. And posts such as this.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.