Bent Corner

I heard that some CBS radio stations are running spots for Sirius XM featuring Howard Stern. Since it’s now up on YouTube, I guess it’s true. And 35 million people listen to Sirius XM? Who’s he kidding? If they have 69 commercial-free music channels, why can’t they have just one punk rock music channel?

Like they used to.

Radio personality Bubba The Love Sponge recently had a very public contract negotiation with Sirius XM satellite radio. The show appears on Sirius channel 101 Monday through Thursday from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm, and Fridays from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Unhappy with the amount of money Sirius was paying him, Bubba returned to terrestrial morning radio in the Tampa area last January. He would do the morning show until 11:00 am and then do his afternoon Sirius show at 3:00 pm.

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At 10:00 a.m. today I changed the channel on my Sirius radio to channel 122 to listen to the Dan Patrick Show. It wasn’t on. At first I thought I had selected the wrong channel. Instead of it being the Dan Patrick Show, it was the sports show that’s normally on channel 123. I made sure I was on channel 122 and then switched over to channel 123. It was the same show. Both channels were simulcasting the same sports show.

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If you’ve ever listened to The Ron and Fez Show on satellite radio (XM channel 202 and Sirius 197) you are probably familiar with the artist known as Sleeves. His real name is Sean Hurley. Actually, Sean Hurley is the writer-performer that plays the part of Sleeves. He makes the most fantastic and incredible music, much of it based on things that have transpired on the Ron and Fez Show.

I can’t adequately describe the stuff he creates. You’ve got to listen to it.

He recently submitted a Christmas song, The La La Christmas Song, to Ron and Fez for consideration to a contest they are running. As soon as they played Sleeves’ submission, it stopped being a contest. The rest of the contestants can now only hope for second place.

The La La Christmas Song

I was feeling pretty good fa la la la la
Taking my time on the la la la la
Snow falling down in the la la la la
Everybody singing like la la la la
Decking all the halls with the la la la la
Making my way to the la la la la la la la

I like to sit out on the pier
And look across the bay
I don’t think about a thing
And feel a million miles away
Like I’m floating from the sky
Like a storm of falling snow
Then I’m spinning through the trees
Then I’m shining in the road
For the people in the light
And all the children in the light
Singing holy holy night

MP3 Download

To say I’m not happy with the reality of the Sirius-XM satellite radio merger is an understatement. I’ve already blogged about the fact that they removed one of my favorite music channels. I’ve now learned that my $150, 6-month old radio does not support the new A La Carte pricing packages.

Back when the two companies were attempting to get the federal government to change the law and allow the two competing satellite radio companies to merge, this was one of the things that would make the merger cheaper for the consumer.  Instead of having to pay for channels you do not want, you could select 50 total channels that you wanted and pay less then the standard $13 bucks a month.

This past May I purchased a Sirius Sportster 5. It was (and still is) the most expensive radio sold by Sirius. It does not support A La Carte pricing.

Instead of paying less, I am now paying even more.  The reason?  To get some of the XM-only radio programing such as the NHL and NBA along with Ron and Fez, I had to cough up another four bucks a month for their “Best of XM package”.

You can’t tell me that they could have made the A La Carte pricing package available to everyone if they chose to.  Instead they are using it to sell new radios.

Howard Stern has been complaining the last couple of days about an article written about him in the Los Angeles Times. The article states that his audience has shrunk since moving over to Sirius satellite radio and because of that, he has lost the clout and influence he enjoyed when he was on terrestrial radio. Because his audience is smaller, he no longer attracts the same level of top-tier guests.

His audience is certainly smaller.  When he was on terrestrial radio, he averaged 12 million listeners a day.  On Sirius satellite radio, his audience is somewhere between 1 and 2 million listeners.  The merger between Sirius and XM has not resulted in a huge audience gain.  XM subscribers that want to listen to Howard Stern have to pay an extra $4 a month.  Not only do they get to listen to Howard Stern, they get the NFL, NASCAR, and the Martha Stewart channel.

As a Sirius satellite radio subscriber, I can attest to the fact that his guest list has taken a downgrade since his days on regular radio. He doesn’t get the same level of guests that he once did.  I’m sure part of the reason for this is because he has less of an audience, but I don’t think that’s the only reason.  I think part of the reason is because he doesn’t do a show on Fridays.  His show runs Monday through Thursday.  Friday’s show is a best-of montage from the rest of the week.

Not having a live show on Friday means Hollywood celebrities wishing to promote their movies opening that weekend go and do it elsewhere.

He would probably get better guests if he went back to working on Fridays.

Air America has suspended host Randi Rhodes for offensive comments made about Democratic Presidential nomination candidate Hillary Clinton and former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She referred to Clinton as a “Fucking Whore” and made the comment that Ferraro was David Duke in drag.

She didn’t make these comments on the radio. She said them at an Air America event in San Francisco.

Was she drunk? Do a Google search for photos of Randi Rhodes and a good majority of them show her holding a drink of some kind. She has also been involved in some stuff off the air that would make a lot more sense if she was constantly blitzed. Things like calling Clinton a derogatory, sexist name. There was the time in 2007 when she had been drinking all day at a Irish pub in New York City and blacked out and hit her head. She initially informed Air America that she was mugged. It was then said by some liberal bloggers that she had been attacked by a right-wing hit squad. The whole thing was more then a little goofy. She was off the air for a few days because of it.

Listening to Randi Rhodes speak is a lot like listening to fingernails on the chalkboard. She speaks with a heavy Brooklyn accent that seems to be, well, amplified for effect. It’s so bad it sounds fake.

She also often has her facts completely wrong. I once heard her refer to the Iran-Contra scandal as though the hostages involved were the 52 American hostages taken in 1979 when the Shah of Iran was overthrown and the American Embassy seized. It’s that type of gross factual inaccuracy you would expect to hear on Sean Hannity.

My hope is that the suspension turns out to be permanent. In the world of talk radio, suspensions usually are.

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I have an iPod. XM Satellite Radio has pulled the plug on Opie and Anthony (O&A) for 30 days. This stems from crude sexual jokes about Condoleeza Rice, Laura Bush, and Queen Elizabeth made by a homeless man on their show.

I read the press release on the XM Radio website. It sounds as though they suspended them not for the crude comments made last week, but because O&A didn’t seem overly contrite yesterday while talking about the incident.

Comments made by Opie and Anthony on yesterday’s broadcast put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter. The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them.

This seems extremely petty on XM’s Radio’s part. If they were going to suspend them, they should have done so after they made the comments. Then again, they were NOT the ones that actually made the comments. Now it seems they are being suspended for not sucking up to XM Radio management.

XM Radio may want to punish Opie and Anthony, but I feel like I’m the one that’s being punished. I will still be required to pay the monthly $12.99 subscription fee. I just wont get to listen to content I usually enjoy listening to. I guess I could cancel for the month, but they would then turn around and charge me a $10 connection fee to reestablish my account next month. That’s assuming O&A ever return to XM Radio.

XM Radio wins no matter what I do.

I’m not going to pretend that the comments weren’t extremely rude, crude, and in bad taste. The thing is, that’s what Opie and Anthony do. It’s what their show is all about. It’s a funny show that is often times extremely raw in nature. You never really know what you are going to hear. Because the show is on satellite, Opie and Anthony are free from FCC restrictions on content.

This makes me wonder why XM Radio didn’t have a problem with any of the other things they have done the past three years. Was everyone else fair game, but Condoleeza Rice, Laura Bush, and Queen Elizabeth off-limits? If I didn’t know any better, I would think this had something to do with the possible XM/Sirius merger. The one that would require the Federal government to step in and change the law to allow both satellite radio companies to merge.

I promise that I’m not going to permanently blog about the Don Imus “nappy-headed ho” controversy, but I tend to write about things that interest me. Sometimes I write about funny books. Sometimes I write about politics. Like I said, I blog about things that I find interesting.

Right now, I’m finding the Imus story interesting.

Yesterday’s New York Daily News ran a story about one of the ministers that was calling for Imus to be fired. The man’s name is Reverend DeForest Soaries and he hails from New Jersey. He claims to be one of the first to call for Imus to be fired. I’m not sure if this entitles him to print up t-shirts and trucker hats stating this fact, but I guess only time will tell.

He tells of being asked to act as a liaison between the Rutgers basketball team and Imus by Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer, a member of his flock. Not that I really understand why a liaison was needed. Soaries tells the New York Daily News of meeting with Imus in New York to discuss meeting with the team. As it turns out, the meeting took place minutes if not seconds after Imus found out he was fired from MSNBC.

“I became more of a pastor to him than the facilitator of the meeting,” he said.

“We didn’t even talk about what I was supposed to be there for. I needed to be with him spiritually. This was a man who’d just got big, bad news and he needed me to listen to him.

“He didn’t cry, but I could see he was in pain. He tried to joke, but it was a mask for that pain. He seemed hurt by what had happened to him.

“He felt somewhat betrayed by certain people. He didn’t name anybody, but he thought certain people could have given him more time.

“He thinks he should have been given the chance to meet the team first, that if those people could see he was truly repentant, then CBS and MSNBC would see it that way, too.

“I had words of consolation for him, even though I was one of those asking for him to be fired.”

I’m glad that Reverend Soaries could console and act as a paster to Imus. The last time I checked, that is what our holy men are supposed to do. They aren’t supposed to demand that people be fired from their jobs. They are supposed to act as spiritual counselors.

They are supposed to be advocates for forgiveness. At least the Christian ones. Forgiveness is what the Christian faith is based on. It’s what Jesus preached about. It’s what he commanded us to do to each other. To forgive. Something not a lot of the reverends involved in the Imus controversy have been doing.

Forgiveness means that you don’t demand somebody to be fired.

Shouldn’t Reverend Soaries have kept silent about ministering to Imus? Doesn’t he have some sort of ethical obligation to keep quiet about consoling Imus?

I’m sure Reverend DeForest Soaries did nothing wrong by speaking to the New York Daily News about the meeting. I can tell by looking at his photo that Reverend DeForest Soaries is a very honorable man. Did you notice the way he sits with his chin resting in the palm of his hand? He looks to be very thoughtful and insightful. Plus, I see from his photo that he fancies shirts with French cuffs. Nothing speaks integrity more then fancy French shirts.

Imus on the other hand wears cowboy clothes.