UnrealisticExpectations 3.0

I think I’ve raved a few times in the past about how much of a fan I am of the XM Radio. I’m a huge, huge fan and I have a lot of guilty pleasures that I like to turn on and crank through the garage and off the deck when I’m doing yard work.

Fortunately, the neighbors have yet to have a reason to complain, so all is pretty good about it.

Then again, I don’t ever listen to Opie & Anthony out in the yard or in the garage; generally just throughout the house when I work from home and generally on the morning commute to the office (which is now all of 8 miles, so I get to listen for nearly 3x as long as I used to when just going to the train station).

These 2 guys–along with comedian Jimmy Norton and a smattering of others (Bill Burr, Patrice O’Neal and just about anyone else who ever showed up on Colin Quinn’s “Tough Crowd” on Comedy Central) grabbed my attention about a year and a half ago while my drive commute could be anywhere up to 1.5 hours, depending upon traffic. They had just come off of the Premium (Pay For) channel and I caught one of their commercials, changed stations and gave it a listen.

After all, until then, I was flipping amongst the morning drivel in Chicago–from Mancow to the Country station to Eric and Kathy to XRT and whatever else was on the pre-sets. I call it drivel because… well, Mancow is formulaic and amped up, but not really very intelligent… and the others all have peak points that you can listen to, but then they dry up or miss and my attention would wane and I’d have to find some other topic.

Insert 10 minutes of trying out Opie & Anthony. I didn’t have a clue who these dorks were, but I was surprised that they seemed to talk just like… well, you and I would talk at a bar over a beer. Assuming you’re a guy or can do the “guy talk” thing.

I got hooked.

They call it the “O&A Virus” and I got sucked in deep. I called in a few times, talked about hot topics I shouldn’t have and all that and it was fun. Jim Norton was in St. Charles–just about 5 miles from my house–last weekend and I was seriously trying hard to make it happen for us.

Regardless, it didn’t take long to figure out that these guys were the guys that had fucked up a lot and gotten fired a lot and were lucky to be working again. They were trying some outlandish shit–the Assault on the Media stuff was HILARIOUS and the way they’d go out of their way to set each other up to get blasted or to eat shit was just… like what we’d do at a bar having a beer.

Regular stuff. Good vibe. Decent formula.

Almost no commercials.

Oh, and they don’t really get along with Howard Stern. Hoo-Hoo Robin. Tell ‘em, Fred.

See, now I didn’t have a problem with the Howard. I didn’t listen to him, but I think Nicolle did by association with her sister and brother-in-law and living with them. I’d pay attention for 20 minutes or so when flipping through channels and hitting E, but who wouldn’t late at night when you’ve got a penis and they’re showing blurred out boobies and you think you can see the outline of a nipple? Just saying.

And sure, I’ve seen “Private Parts” and it’s a decent movie and it really endears you to Howard. He appears to be “One of Us”, too, and we all like that.

But, more and more, I started to get the hang of these 3 guys. You get the personalities, you get their views–you even disagree with them, and that’s okay. They’ll just trick you and hang up on you–and even that’s hilarious, to be honest. Even so, I started to understand that, basically, Howard Stern was a pretty big, world-class jerk.

And that’s fine with me, too. That’s the nature of business–sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to keep yourself and number one. You’ve got to railroad or be railroaded–if you think you’ve got no other choice. I get the motive and I can handle that. There’s a certain degree of fear that motivates people to do some things that I think they wouldn’t normally do, but that’s just how it happens at times.

So, anyway…

Howard Stern made this big stink about how he was leaving Terrestrial Radio forever and he exited with fanfair and headed on over to Sirius.

Brilliant move; added a lot of listeners to their base. Did nothing but increase the competition between the 2 satellite players and drives a better listening experience for me all the time.

Howard has spoken a lot about his move and his lawsuit and has explained how he was leaving FOR-EVAR!!!1one

That’s his deal.

Now, Opie & Anthony–and perhaps their “super agent” come back into play and start to speak with Stern’s old stations… and sure, that’s probably not exactly how it all went down, but in a broad stroke, it’s basically what has happened.

Opie & Anthony have taken Howard Stern’s BIG GIANT EXIT FROM TERRESTRIAL RADIO and parlayed it into their own return to that same player–with a simulcast for XM (and an additional couple of good ol’ XM O&A for the rest of us) and for some more paycheck for them. Gotta be honest–today’s first show didn’t quite sound as good as the XM shows do and there was a bit of hesitation and attention to self-imposed filtering that I could “feel”–to the point that the show wasn’t great, but once they got to XM things were much, much better and more relaxed. These guys are good at what they do–I can give them a chance; I’m just happy that someone I have come to appreciate is finding more success.

In fact, XM and Terrestrial Radio are now in bed with each other–each footing the bill for some great talent and ratings AND playing off of each other in their local markets.

It’s the type of big, industry-changing deal that shows you just how much Howard Stern let his own, “Take This Job And Shove It”-ive-ness get so much ahold of his ego that he pissed all over those that had been showering him with cash for years and years.

Oh, and he talked about how loyal he was.

Yet, he didn’t think about making the business move to get TWO PAYCHECKS instead of ONE?

Seems to me that a loyal, team-playing, wise business-decision-making person would have had the foresight to see this type of deal in the works…

Dunno.

Maybe he’s getting old.

Maybe he’s slipping.

Maybe he’s tired.

Maybe next time I’ll take him on in the blog space.

I could have seen this deal happening; these 2 mediums do not have to be full-on competitors. Sure, we don’t really listen to terrestrial radio at home–but then again, I control the music… But other people, I’m sure they listen to local, XM/Sirius or MP3s or whatever. It all depends on the mood, the timing, etc. People find their groove about it all and they listen to what they want, when and where they can.

XM and Opie & Anthony and CBS seem to have made some interesting bedfellows–I’ve a suspicion that if they can hold it all together, Howard Stern will find some outlet to do the same thing. I gather he won’t be able to stand being one-upped for too long and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t out there fishing now, because…

As Opie has said, “We can talk to all of Howard’s listeners and he can talk to NONE of ours.”

And he’s right.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Raves, Bloggy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.