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November 5, 2005

The Big Dicker, Howard Stern

By: The Dude on the Right
Okay, the celebrating might have went  on a little longer than planned for the White Sox winning the World Series, especially since all I've gotten done publicly was a podcast with my take on the singing that went on during the series, but behind the scenes, you cannot imagine the things I've gotten done.  But enough of that, this blog is about what I'm calling "The Big Dicker."

I can hear you saying something like "Dude, what's 'The Big Dicker,' and how does it relate to Howard Stern?"  If you're a Howard fan and have visited his site anytime of late, I think you already know.  If you're in an area of the country that Howard Stern was never on your airwaves, you almost might be saying "Who's Howard?"  And if you're a Stern hater, you're probably saying something like "Fine, Howard's a big dick.  That's no surprise to me."  In any case, if you are 17 years or older and went to see an R-rated movie this weekend (as was my case), or maybe are under 17 and bought a ticket for "Chicken Little" and snuck into see "Jarhead," you may have gotten a little shock at one of the commercials shown on the screen before the start of the flick.

Without ruining the visual for you by my lame writing, you can go directly to the commercial with this link.  And even if my writing doesn't do it justice, I still urge you to check it out.  In any case, the commercial starts out with a simple starlit night.  Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op.30: Einleitung" is playing in the background, at least I believe that is the piece (you might recognize it better as the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey").  Then the stars begin to re-align, into something that resembles, well, I'm  naming it Peni Major, in other words, The Big Dicker.  As "Also Sprach Zarathustra" gets to its climactic moment (yes, the pun is intended), Peni Major begin to tremble a little and a shooting star bursts out from a place in the night sky that one would expect it to burst in relation to The Big Dicker.  And as the commercial is concluding, the wording is filled in at the bottom of the ad: "Coming in January.  Howard Stern.  Only on Sirius..." satellite radio that is.

Love him or hate him, know him or barely recognize the name, there's a pretty good chance you will start to see five words in tons of places, in print, on TV, and little did I figure, at a commercial at a gigaplex near me.  Those five words, in some combination, will be Howard, Stern, Sirius, satellite, and radio.  Yup, the advertising blitz is beginning as Howard Stern goes from the normal FM dial to the Sirius Satellite Radio system.  For some quick disclosure, even if I really don't need to, I'm a big Howard fan, based part of my last car purchase on the fact the Sirius was factory installed, and even own some Sirius stock.  But it's an important time for satellite radio, and Howard's switching sides is part of that importance.  My quick assessment goes like this:  Sure, both systems have commercial free music, music purists argue which is better, but I see the future of satellite radio's success will be based on content other than music.  Why?  That's where the additional money comes in, in terms of additional subscribers, signing on to hear someone they want to during the day, and maybe more importantly, the addition of advertising revenue, because it's only the music that is commercial free on satellite, and both companies own up to that fact.  The content has commercials, and commercial revenue is bumped up by the quantity of listeners, and you can be damn sure both satellite radio companies are aware of this.

Alright, enough sounding like I'm turning into a college business class or an investment blog, I just found it pretty funny to see Howard Stern's Sirius ad, on the big screen, before I got ready to see "Jarhead," which is a pretty good movie by the way, and my review is to come in the next couple of days.  In any case, be warned, you probably won't be able to get away from Howard Stern in the next month and a half, like it or not.

That's it for this one!  I'm The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 5:48 PM | Comments (0)