HELP bring back Howard Stern!!!!

[Mr. Poopypants]

http://www.petitiononline.com/SaveHS/petition.html

[Reynoma]

Is he no longer on the air? I didn't know...I stopped listening to him when it just got to be the same stuff over and over and over.. (in other words, after listening for 3 days)

[Devlop]

Bah, Stern sucks. I'm glad he's off the air.

[AKLGT]

ah, i can't stand him. same thing over and over again, just get some strippers or lesbians, have em make out on your show and you've already replaced him....

[msmyer]

They took him off the air? I thought he just got fined?

[Mr. Poopypants]

THANKS!!! Contrary to popular belief, I did not fall off the face of the planet.

[Stang2Vibe]

Howie can go jump for all I care. I'm glad ClearChannel dropped him. How could they afford not to? Some people are saying that this is censorship. That's funny. I disagree, it was a business decision. I wouldn't keep him on my stations either if it cost me millions in fines for his foul mouth and stupid antics. But he does have a right to be on the air if stations will pick him up. My radios have dials, I can always find something else to listen to.

[cibomatto]

regardless of taste/content you have to admit this IS censorship. He has been raunchy and crude for YEARS but the clamp down didn't happen until after the Jackson fiasco. I am disturbed that the FCC can flex its muscles by dictating what people can listen to by imposing nose bleeding fines. I don't want to live in a world where my only option for entertaiment is "Leave it to Beaver". If the FCC can dictate what we are allowed to say/listen to then what does that say about our freedom of speech? I am all for regulation but this has become such a knee jerk reaction. Who will be next on the chopping block?

[GT_03]

Stern Rules!!!

[Stang2Vibe]

cibomatto, it seems you are missing some of the key facts to the issue. The FCC did not demand the cancellation of Stern's show. Like I said, it was a business decision by ClearChannel, who happens to own about half of the stations that carried the show. Infinity Broadcasting owns the other half. ClearChannel had set forth clear rules and guidelines for what may not be broadcast over their stations (they own it, they can make whatever rules they want.) The broadcast of Stern's show broke the rules. In this case, it so happened that it broke the station's rules as well as the FCC's. ClearChannel made the decision to drop the program based on the severity of the violation. Believe me, I'm sure they didn't want to have to drop the show, it was the #1 daytime show in many of their markets so from a business standpoint, carrying the Howard Stern Show was a great investment. Howie broke the rules and cost them a significant percentage of their investment. If they just pay the fine and give Stern a slap on the wrist for the offense, they run a great risk of it happening again. They decided that the risk was too great and cut themselves loose of the investment. If you want to call that censorship, then we need to charge Martha Stewart with censorship now too.As for the FCC, they are no new government Bureau. They've been around longer than Howard Stern has been alive. Their rules have been long standing, and I'm confident that the rules they use to govern the content of the airwaves have changed very little in the past few decades. Stern has been well aware of these rules since his beginning in broadcasting. Now all of a sudden we're just going to break the rules because the show is popular? I don't think so. If this had involved "Bill and Bob's Home Repair Show" or some small unknown show like that, nobody other than Bill and Bob would utter one word of complaint about it. Might does not make right. Also, Stern's show is on during the daytime, when many broadcasting standards are the tightest. He should consider himself lucky to have gotten away with as much as he has for so many years. You can't see his show during daytime or primetime TV, his TV show is on late at night because the content will not pass the rules for TV broadcasts. Even when his show is broadcast on TV during the time of least restriction, the show is highly censored. Many (if not most) of the words are bleeped out and all the nudity is made fuzzy on the screen. Again, he should consider himself lucky that he is able to be broadcast anywhere at any time and he does get away with A LOT. If you are going to advocate the repeal of certain public standards, then you must repeal them all (which is sadly happening in this country). Would you like it if I stood outside of your house all day and exposed myself to you, your wife, and your children and repeatedly performed sexual acts with myself and others in front of them all the time? If you're going to start throwing out all the rules, then you have to be willing to accept that. The FCC rules have long been in place and allow plenty of room for all kinds of broadcasting, many complain that they allow too much and need to be tightened even further. Don't ever think that your First Amendment rights give you the right to do anything that you please. They only set a guideline for what the government is allowed to prohibit you from doing, and that guideline is incredibly broad. We have more free speech protection than any other country in the world. As long as we stick to the rules that we have, they will not be forced to tighten the rules.

[drunkenmaxx]

i think howard stern is great. they present their show in a manner that make you get to know all the characters as if they were family or freinds. they make everything public, good and bad. noone can milk a celebrity in an interview like good ol' howie. sure, they do a lot of sexually oriented, seemingly perverted bits, but mostly in jest, mocking the fact they there are men and women willing to do the degrading games they present them with.