In the latest H100 News brief it was revealed that the Stern show will be live weds, thurs, fri Jan 2-4 and will resume the normal mon-wed schedule Jan 7. Looks like only a 2 week break after all. Should be fun hearing him bitch about how he had to do this to fit the days in or something then only have 2 days off til the next show haha.
The mark of Malone. It will be fun to see this showdown. If Malone has any brains, he'll bring back Jackie, tell Fred to wake up, make a decision about Robin, tell Howie he's back to 5 days a week and wack most of the hangers' on behind the scenes. You know, think about the listeners for a change and call Howie's bluff. Howie will then have to shape up or cut a deal with an over the air group like Clear Channel or Cumulus or go it alone with a podcast like Carolla. No way he retires. His ego wouldn't allow it.
If Malone wants to really play hardball with Stern he would immediately announce the layoffs of all the excess baggage from his channels. Not including the HTV crew since that is a separate deal, Stern really needs no larger a back office staff than O&A. In fact he could get by with a smaller one since he has fewer guests on (many of which are there because they are long time friends of the show), and he does far fewer shows. Also they could just repeat the time filling specials of the first 7 years of sirius for the remaining 3, no need for new ones of reshuffled material That means in the back office Stern needs no more people than Gary (producer/booker), JD (cheif content provider), and perhaps 1 or 2 others along with unpaid interns. They could then say "okay Stern, you want to bitch about us being heartless, then pay the rest of your underlings out of your own substantial income.". This would eally put the screws to him because howard will either have to bite the bullet and pay them, or look like a scrooge for being too stingy to sacrifice at most 2 out of the close to 100 million he makes per year.
Howard has a contract based on a number of shows. If he has to work 5 days per week, he'll just work fewer weeks.
How fucking sad it has become that working a thursday and Friday is something special and he will expect appreciation and thanks from everyone.
All he's doing is working three days when he normally wouldn't be, so that he can take the time off later in the year when the magic that is AGT begins..... By January will ANYONE be listening? Just turn out the lights.
Exactly, I am sure Sirius balked about all the extra time he took off for AGT working two days a week. This is his way about getting around their complaints without violating his contract.
