Stations Expected to Yield to Bottom Line Despite ‘Indecency’
By PAT MAIO
Staff Reporter
Don’t be shocked by the obvious.
Reaction to Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl flash and the late February decision by Clear Channel Communications Inc. to dump “The Howard Stern Show” are seen as part of a headline-grabbing but ultimately futile backlash against declining standards.
“I can’t imagine him being off for more than two weeks,” said Terry Fahy of Clear Channel’s Stern decision. Fahy, vice president and general manager of Camarillo-based Christian broadcaster Salem Communications Corp., supported the decision, but said Stern generated too much money to be pushed off the air permanently.
“He’s too big and too popular and, besides, Infinity didn’t take him off the air,” Fahy said. “I’d be surprised if Clear Channel kept him off.”
The Stern show is said to generate as much as $100 million in annual advertising and fee revenue for his nationwide carrier, the Infinity Broadcasting unit of Viacom Inc.
In L.A., the show airs on Infinity-owned KLSX-FM (97.1). Bob Moore, general manager of KLSX, did not return calls seeking comment.
KLSX’s Stern broadcast slipped in the most recent Arbitron ratings, posting a 3.7 percent audience share in its 6 to 10 a.m. time slot for Fall 2003, down from a 3.9 percent share the year earlier. The show was the sixth-highest rated show in the market in the most recent ratings.
Joe Saltzman, a journalism professor and associate dean at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, said the Clear Channel reaction was less a response to slipping standards than it was a political decision.
Clear Channel owns about 1,200 radio stations nationwide and by dumping the show from the six that carried it, the company offered an example of what Saltzman called “the dangers of having large conglomerates” own so many stations.
“Many warned that the grabbing up of so many radio stations by one major company might result in censorship and media control. And this is what seems to be happening when one major company can take a popular radio personality such as Howard Stern off six stations simply because it has the power to do so.”
Clear Channel last week agreed to pay a $755,000 fine for airing lewd material on its “Bubba the Love Sponge” show, broadcast in Florida. The size of the fine is second only to the $1.5 million penalty issued to in 1995 Infinity for material aired by Stern.
The action came as the House Commerce Committee approved a bill to toughen penalties against television and radio broadcasters for indecency.
Underscoring the increased sensitivities, Santa Monica-based KCRW-FM (89.9) last week fired commentator Sandra Tsing Loh’s after she used an obscenity in her three-minute commentary broadcast Feb. 29, said Sarah Spitz, a KCRW spokeswoman.
“A word considered actionable (by the Federal Communications Commission) was uttered,” Spitz said. “As soon as we knew about the incident, the very next day action was taken.”
Bloomberg News contributed to this story.
