Sad Sad day for free speech
 

Today was the last day Howard Stern could be heard for free. :(

Thank goodness. Now let's see if anyone would actually pay to hear this asshole.

How is it a sad day for free speech? No one forced him to leave. He just didn't want to play by the rules. It is one thing to push the envelope, but what he was doing was WAY beyond the bounds of what could be termed acceptable. He was rude, boorish, annoying and obscene (for public airways). He is entire shtick was to push the boundaries and be an asshole.

I say that Howard, by pushing the limit as much as he did, ruined the airways for many others (he did not do it alone - Opus & Andy as well as others did their fair share).

I for one like Stern but at this time I can't buy Sirius. While he did push limits no one forced anyone to listen to him but the FCC got their panties in a wad after the whole Janet Jackson incident and decided that the fabric of our morality was being corrupted by "adult" topics on the public airwaves.

Good. Now all I have to see of Howard is dumb billboards. Hopefully those will go away soon.

I'm much more concerned that the FCC appears to be positioning itself to enforce "decency" standards on cable services.

It is not possible to prevent those under eighteen from listening to public airwaves radio. Obviously I am no poster child for the Moral Majority, but even I think that some things go "too far" - Howard consistently crossed the line in my book.

With rights comes responsibility - too many people have forgotten that.

just never cared for his bit. nothing against those who seemed to enjoy it but it always seemed to cater a little too much to the 'lowest common denominator' set for me.

cant honestly say I'll miss him because I never listened anyway

No big loss. I don't see this as a blow for free speech - the airwaves have never been consider "free" - they are highly regulated and pretty much always have been.

But, like Capt Jack, I never listened to him and was only aware of him when he did something outrageous enough to make the news.

I have a friend who is getting Sirius specifically so that she can listen to him on her drive to work in th morning.

Her drive to work is only about 18 minutes long.

I like him sometimes. He's a smart guy with too much of a tendency towards the scatological, but when he's interviewing a celebrity that can keep up with him then good things happen. Also, when their doing the news, it can be funny. But there isn't enough of that to make it worth my time to specifically try to catch the show.

If I stumble across the show I'll usually listen long enough to determine which mode he's in and more often then not quickly move on. Unfortunately, in hyping the satellite show he seems to be focusing on now being able to spend more time in the wrong mode.