In fact, it was only Howard's six Clear Channel
outlets (all in midsize markets) that pulled his show.
 The great majority of his audience comes through
Infinity-owned stations, the same company that
syndicates and markets his show to other outlets.  I'm
not sure where the 60% figure came from, but the
markets the show was dropped from are Fort Lauderdale
and Orlando, Fla., Rochester, N.Y., San Diego,
Pittsburgh and Louisville, Ky (perhaps the figure was
a misunderstanding that came from the fact that Clear
Channel controls more tha 60% of the nationwide radio
audience overall).

In any case, this move came the day before the
president of Clear Channel was to testify before a
Congressional committee on the indecency issue.  Mel
Karmazin, the chair of Infinity Broadcasting, put down
an order to all his stations last week that indecency
would no longer be  tolerated, and that violators
would be dealt with in a swift and decisive fashion. 
His dictate doesn't just impact shock jocks -- it has
led a number of rock stations in this market (Chicago)
to come up with new edits of classic songs that
contain words that may soon be prohibited from
broadcast.

Clear Channel followed Karmazin's lead this week with
a similar dictate.  Here is the story from media
columnist Robert Feder's Sun-Times column today:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/feder/cst-fin-feder26.html

On the Stern issue, while I don't agree with
censorship, I must admit I really rolled my eyes when
I read a quote from his show this morning where he
said something about the powers-that-be being "so
afraid of what I have to say..."  All I could think
was, "yeah, all that talk about strippers and lesbians
is pretty threatening to the dominant paradigm."  Viva
la revolucion, Howard Stern.

--Shawn

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