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Why Did CBS Wait Until Now To Sue Howard Stern?

Legal Issues

from the take-a-guess dept

Tue, Feb 28th 2006 6:14pm — Mike Masnick
The wires are buzzing with the story that CBS Radio is suing Howard Stern, his agent and Sirius Radio. The details backing up the lawsuit are questionable at best. They're upset that Stern continuously promoted Sirius on the air for well over a year since he signed the agreement to move to the satellite radio system. The complaint is that he gave them free advertising. That may be true, but it seems a to be a bit late in the game to be complaining now. If they were so concerned about all this free advertising, why not just fire him when it was going on or sue him then? It seems likely that they didn't bother because they were making so much money from his show. There are also some questions about the stock transactions involving Stern and Sirius -- which again, may be accurate -- but seem outside the scope of a lawsuit with CBS Radio. Shouldn't it be the SEC that looks into such things? However, the real reason that CBS Radio may be doing this could be similar to yesterday's bizarre lawsuit over the Da Vinci Code: to generate publicity. After all, Stern's replacement in New York has apparently not been able to hold onto much of an audience.
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23 Comments

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  • identicon
    tom, 28 Feb 2006 @ 7:46pm

    No Subject Given

    well, he did, and it takes quite a long time to make sure you have all your facts straight before you create a lawsuit.

    i personally don't really care if howard moved to sat radio, and am a little skeptable about buying into the whole thing with the way XM is going. Public radio format is going to change very soon with the introduction of HD Radio, and will very closely make sat radio unnecessary. I can put up with the ads and not have to pay a monthly fee. oh, and morning shows are probably the hardest show to do and takes quite a lot of effort to start and get your listeners listening.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Sohrab, 28 Feb 2006 @ 8:12pm

      Re: No Subject Given

      what is this HD radio i hear about?

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Isotopian, 28 Feb 2006 @ 11:25pm

        Re: No Subject Given

        It's like normal radio. But Hi Def!

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          THOR, 1 Mar 2006 @ 12:23am

          Re: No Subject Given

          So why would "Hi Def" make that crap any better? The shows are self fulfilling garbage the same as Sterns show. Let’s not forget if any music is ever played it’s the same stuff hour after hour! XM is the way to go for what you want. Oh yeah and lets not forget about VHF/UHF TV. Where is that again?

          I think I Squizz'd

          [ link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          P Ness, 1 Mar 2006 @ 4:44am

          Re: No Subject Given

          LOL another clueless noob.
          HD in HD radio DOES NOT STAND FOR HI DEF.
          its all marketing...read about it...its the same crap it just allows for digital streams of radio, and multiple streams from the same station.
          YOU are also still going to have 10 minutes + of commercials..

          [ link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2006 @ 5:19am

            Re: No Subject Given

            Funny. I always thought "HD" stood for...
            Hard Drive
            High Density
            Home Depot
            Heavy Duty
            Help Desk
            Heart Disease
            Harley Davidson
            Half-Duplex
            Home Delivery
            ...or just plain, Hot Dog

            I guess "High Definition" can now be added to the list :P

            [ link to this | view in chronology ]

            • identicon
              Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2006 @ 5:28am

              Re: No Subject Given

              Funny. I always thought "HD" stood for...
                Harley Davidson

              No, sorry, Harley-Davidson has always been H-D, not HD.

              [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      jacatro, 28 Feb 2006 @ 8:30pm

      Re: No Subject Given

      Wah, wah, wah- I guess you get what you pay for.
      Personally, I think Stern's doing the funniest stuff in years- AND just goes to show that just because you're a conglomerate, still doesn't mean you can own a person!
      12 bucks a month is a small price to pay for free speech-

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2006 @ 10:21pm

      Re: No Subject Given

      Skeptable?

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Evan, 28 Feb 2006 @ 8:28pm

    Howard

    Stern claims Les Moonves said outright that they let Stern talk about Sirius just so they could sue him, that way they could make a bunch of money on his last month of shows, then make more from suing him. Anyone who listened to Howard on terrestrial radio knew they needed little motive to dump Stern if he said anything close to what they didn't like, and certainly could have stopped his Sirius talk if they wanted. Stern also thinks they waited until now to bring this up to take the focus off the fact that their new morning shows have terrible ratings.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Davis Freeberg, 28 Feb 2006 @ 8:32pm

    Moonvies is vain

    I saw a great quote on CNBC this morning where Howard said that he met with Les, but couldn't read what he was thinking because of Les' botox.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    nonuser, 28 Feb 2006 @ 9:01pm

    I wonder how much longer...

    this will go on before someone hangs the dreaded "perfect guest host" label on David Lee Roth.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Sohrab, 1 Mar 2006 @ 1:31am

    No Subject Given

    yea from what I know, this HD Radio is just a BS marketing campaign correct? I mean hell, the new interl chipset and Motherboard I got says it has 7.1 HD Surround. wtf is HD surround? come on now. just using that "HD" name.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    what a load of s*!t, 1 Mar 2006 @ 5:22am

    Get serious

    If this is anything mroe than a publicity stunt than CBS is whacked in the head. First they could have and should have gone for a preliminary injunction at the time they first recognized the infractions. Next, they suspended Howard for a day which is already some form of punishment and because of this they cannot claim they did not know there was an impact until after he left. Since Howard's ratings did not drop during his final months (they may have even increased) he fulfilled his contractual obligation to CBS and I suspect they even raised advertising rates for hsi last few shows. And finally, how can anyone determine on a talk show what is and is not advertising? Howard talked about many products he used during the talk segments is that free advertising? Is CBS suinghim for that? Of course nto since his contract probably allowed for him to determine the content so long as it was within FCC limits. Bottom line is CBS doesnt have a clue AND I think this will majorly backfire since it will drive those Howard fans that are currently on the fence about moving to satellite to make the switch.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      David C, 1 Mar 2006 @ 7:20am

      Re: Get serious

      And if it *is* a publicity stunt, it's an incredibly stupid one, because it helps Howard Stern, not CBS!

      I can't imagine how CBS could succeed here, given their gross failure to mitigate damages. Stern was quite obviously and openly using his CBS show as free advertising for his upcoming cable radio show for many months. It just shows how messed up CBS is that they didn't just take him off the air then, but they were more concerned with eking out a few short-term dollars, I guess.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tulio, 1 Mar 2006 @ 7:23am

    Stern

    The show is 100 times better than on regular radio.

    They didn't want to can Howard because it was in te contract to pay him if they fire him for breach of contract. They gave him warnings and he stopped saying the word satellite radio as requested, but said "uh huh huh" to signify Satellite radio.

    They could not stop the callers from saying satellite radio, it was inevitable.

    Regular radio even with HD will not be any better unless the FCC lets freedom of speech go on.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2006 @ 8:51am

      Re: Stern

      They could and did stop callers from talking about satellite radio. Many times a caller would begin talking about their new purchase of a satellite radio and suddenly there was a time warp to the end of the topic.

      Either someone cut the broadcast while the caller was talking about it or there was a tear in space and time centralized entirely within the studio.

      But yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with everything else you said.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Nipsey Russell, 1 Mar 2006 @ 9:16am

    dump

    Howard definitely did promote sirius while on the radio (and for some reason still spends half his show promoting sirius, which is why i wont pay $13/month!), but this is bogus because they had guy whose whole job was to dump out (eg beep) anything he said that was "obscene" due to the fcc arrangement they had. Thus, they could, and did, "delete" many things he said from the air. As far as I'm concerned, this means that they had full control over what went out over the air regardless of what Stern said or did. As such, they can sue themselves for writing the dump policy or "Dead Air Dave" who ran the dump button

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymous coward, 1 Mar 2006 @ 1:00pm

    No Subject Given

    stern is an idiot, his listeners are idiots, and moonves is an idiot. there is no new news here. please move along.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Bill, 2 Mar 2006 @ 7:07am

      Re: No Subject Given

      true, it's nothing important, but what did you expect from a sited called "techdirt"?

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Corey, 3 Mar 2006 @ 8:12am

    Full Disclosure

    Viacom does have a reason to sue Stern. In the radio business you have to give your employer first right of refusal. Stern didn't do that, he blindsided Viacom (and his staff) with an on-air announcement.
    He also didn't disclose the full terms of his agreement. Yes, everyone knew about the $500M over 5 years, no one knew about the 32M shares of stock he would receive if Sirius reached certain subscriber goals. Knowing he stood to make $100M-$200M if he brought in enough subscribers surely changed his on-air behavior. If you listened to the show at all the final 14 months were pretty much filled with references to Sirius, subtle or otherwise.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      tom, 3 Mar 2006 @ 2:36pm

      Re: Full Disclosure

      you're exactly right, however it's not viacom anymore, it's CBS Radio.

      Eh, who cares anyhow, his show sucks, filled with idiot remarks, and really has no substance.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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