This morning, before 7, I heard a Howard rant to the effect that he is happy to be on AGT because there are only four stars on that show and how unhappy he is that everyone on THSS is a star and how tacky all of their acts are, especially Lisa G. Quiet descended on the studio because he was talking about almost all of his entire tacky staff. This to me is Howard the bully in action. He has to put everyone in his or her place periodically, remind them that they are nobodies (did that to Stutterng John every six months, tried to do it to Fred once and he walked out). I don't buy his reasons, such as they hurt his brand. This is a guy who spent 20 minutes last week on his problem in getting all of the shit out of his butt. His stock in trade is interviewing strippers. No one expects Ronnie the Limo Driver and Shuli to put on something that resemble THSS. He says they take advantage of his fans. The fans are not Howard's bitches. They know what they are paying for. If their only way to get near Howard is to pay $100 bucks to eat cupcakes with Lisa G or see Ronnie yelling "let's fuck some whores" and they want to do it, sobeit. Don't treat them as children who must be protected from paying for bad shows and don't start banning everything. Finally, I don't get the feeling the staff "stars" make very much money. Howard, who seems to have a problem spreading it around, should not begrudge them the crumbs the are picking up.

Howard is probably angling for a piece of the action.

__________________
DRC Photo Contest #3 - Winner

He is in a way by requiring them to allow Howard TV in (for nothing I assume).

Wow, so he's starting to crap all over his radio career, basically. He controls his airwaves, he puts all of those "stars" on the air. He alone segues them in by asking Robin if "she heard about Lisa G." or says, "I've got to tell you about what Ronnie did." No one would know if he didn't throw them on the air.

i kinda agree with howard on this though. if they are going to promote whatever stupid "Sweet treat" or block party on H100 and H101, howard should have some say on if he wants HTV there or not to create fodder material for his show.

__________________

Exactly. If they are going to use the channels to drive their ticket sales, then the show should be able to get footage of the event to use for its purposes.

"ticket sales". ... C'mon... This is a guy who makes tens of milions "take home", who is brooding because he couldn't squeeze another $300,000,000 out of Sirius and $30,000,000 for his bloodsucking agent. He has the audacity to chastise Scott for passing up 2 thousand for a weekend with a band of rats. Howard is one of the cheapest entertainment moguls in the history of "all media". How can you side with him? It's so unequal.

Maybe if Howard paid his staff a decent amount of money they wouldn't have to do this to get by.

__________________
No Agenda Show with John C Dvorak and Adam Curry! In the morning!
Click on it^

I weep for our future.

It's got nothing to do with what Howard makes. Basically, no one would be interested in going to any of these events (Ronnie's Block Party, etc) if these people didn't have a connection to the Stern Show. Having the events be taped for Howard TV in exchange for the free publicity they receive doesn't seem too much to ask. No one involved had a problem with this type of arrangement until Lisa G refused to let them cover her "Pay me $100 and I'll give you a cupcake and talk to you for five minutes" event.

Howard's payment strategy for his staff seems to revolve solely around, "I'm not going to pay you very much, and if you don't like it, you can leave." Of course, guys rarely do leave because they want to work for the show. It's a little too shrewd. But that doesn't justify not paying someone well or what they are worth. JD should probably be making more than $30K (approx.) considering he stays into the night to have clips ready for Howard. If he didn't do that, Howard would b*tch on the air that JD doesn't do a very good job. The staff there can't win.

If you have an agent, it's a different matter, because Howard stays out of it.

Makes me wonder if Benjy has an agent. BTW, where is Benjy? I haven't listened much lately but I don't think I have heard him at all for awhile now. I listened a fair amount today an not a peep out of him.