Sunday, December 30, 2007

History of Howard Stern



So I have an old Sirius S50 with a car mount which works fine and my girlfriend has a Stiletto (one) but neither of us do a lot of time shifting because it's a little difficult to program them and you get into issues with pulling them out of your car and putting them into the home unit to record, etc. etc.

Sirius still doesn't time shift well. And frankly, their hardware and software doesn't come close to the iPod which I use every day to time shift NPR and half a dozen news and tech shows.

However, I finally started time shifting again because the "The History of Howard Stern" programs. I know a lot of fans have been bitching because Howard's off for a couple weeks over the holidays, but I think this alternative programming is more than worth it. They are amazingly well produced and give great insight into the origin of one of the greatest minds (seriously) of our time.

All of which gets me back to the issue of why this stuff isn't available for downloading on iTunes. Surely there is no logic to the idea that allowing fans to purchase and keep these serious documentaries covering Howard's history would somehow cannibalize the regular broadcast or in any way hurt Sirius subscriptions. In fact, how could they not but help Sirius sales by bringing some people curious about Howard into the family.

I hope, and pray, that Sirius (and Howard) are simply being cautious while waiting for the merger to close before pursuing a serious expansion of Howard's reach into the internet. Once that deal is closed, the fans, and history, deserve to have this programming easily available for any hardware.

Sirius (even after the merger) will never be a great hardware manufacturer. Not on the level of Apple or Sony. They are broadcasters first, and should focus on broadcasting. Their efforts and manufacturing hardware was necessary to create a new broadcasting medium. But the sooner they allow subscribers to use any type of hardware they like, the quicker they will expand their audience.

And God bless the 19 year old Howard Stern (as discussed in the History) that didn't fuck the 16 year old girls when he was a camp leader in charge of them. He is a better person for it, and I'm sure the girls are too. It's rare that a young girl learns that there are some men that won't do anything for pussy. But it's better to learn that at 16 when you're still cute, rather than 30 when you think you are fading.

Mary

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