Would Howard take a pay cut?

[me_rubin]

With SIRI now at 14 Cents, Sirius needs some serious money.

Unions in the auto industry will be asked to make concessions for the automakers, Do you think Howard would make pay concessions for the Satellite Radio company?

Maybe an extension of an extra 2 years with no pay?

Maybe just agree no more vacations?

Maybe a 5 day work week?

Come on Howard take one for the team....

 

[The Butler]

About as likely as the Pope becoming a Muslim.

 

[JoeTan]

"Maybe just agree no more vacations?

Maybe a 5 day work week?"

These were both decisions implemented because of budget cutbacks. Only have to pay workers for 4day weeks.

Besides, Stern has made his paycheck back and then some. Nothing else is pulling it's weight though. All the sports stuff is a RIP OFF. They got ESPN on there but do you ever hear ESPN plug Sirius? NFL rip off that again, hardly ever plugs Sirius.

some money well spent right there.

 

[IronJabroni]

With SIRI now at 14 Cents, Sirius needs some serious money.

Unions in the auto industry will be asked to make concessions for the automakers, Do you think Howard would make pay concessions for the Satellite Radio company?

Maybe an extension of an extra 2 years with no pay?

Maybe just agree no more vacations?

Maybe a 5 day work week?

Come on Howard take one for the team....

I say not in a million years to any of the above...ego will not allow for it.

 

[rickster53]

With SIRI now at 14 Cents, Sirius needs some serious money.

Unions in the auto industry will be asked to make concessions for the automakers, Do you think Howard would make pay concessions for the Satellite Radio company?

Maybe an extension of an extra 2 years with no pay?

Maybe just agree no more vacations?

Maybe a 5 day work week?

Come on Howard take one for the team....

I'd say "no way in hell". Look at how much bitching he did last week about having a meeting to discuss a suggestion that he could help the company by simply going on Letterman to plug the service.

 

[hank-the-dwarf]

I say no way.He wont even mention the stock price(unless Eric from Hoboken or Bobo bring it up).:yesshake:

 

[devicemanager]

I wonder if Howard cashed in all his stock options? He might be able to be the siriusxm bailout himself?

He already made his money and every now and then he says he doesn't think he will continue and if he does it will be in a very lax manner.

The other day he said he was very tired because something personal was eating at him. Maybe it was the whole siriusxm failure?

I read an article about the siri stock, where they compared it to a slot machine that takes quarters, well now almost dimes. If this should turn around we will feel dumb if we didn't pick up even $100 worth. But still it is a crap shoot.

 

[Vargas]

You can't be serious.

And here is what Howard would say.

"When I announce my move to Sirius thye had 300,000 subscribers and now have over 19 million. Nobody signed up for Nascar and NFL, they all signed up for me. If anything I should get a raise."

It would backfire.

 

[k9feces]

Mel Karmazin is making 35 million a year fire that toothy bastard.

 

[ProperModulation]

maybe they should looking at cutting other expenses that don't actually pay for themselves before looking at The Stern Show. Martha, Oprah, and Jamie Fox would be a good start. It's too bad they can't sell/lease out the sats from one of the services and move all programming to the other set of hardware. Those birds have to be a MAJOR expense considering the cost of having one designed, built, launched, and maintained. Not to mention the ground infrastructure that had to be built in parallel. Those are very big costs that won't be recovered any time soon (if ever).

I don't see Howard taking a pay cut. He's much past the point of needing to stay on the air at all costs. I could see him going year to year, or maybe a taking a 2 year deal at his current rate. He last raise at WXRK was 0.0. but I'm betting that this time he actually retires. In the past couple of years we've seen Booey and Robin (who share Howard's agent) make moves to try and make a name for themselves outside the show: Robin's TV project that went nowhere, her "Girls Night Out" charity BS, Booey's acceptance as a Friar, etc... To me this could mean that they see the writing on the wall and know that the Howard Stern gravy train ends on 12/31/2010. When that happens, Sirius will have most likely received their last cent from me...

 

[Vargas]

maybe they should looking at cutting other expenses that don't actually pay for themselves before looking at The Stern Show. Martha, Oprah, and Jamie Fox would be a good start. It's too bad they can't sell/lease out the sats from one of the services and move all programming to the other set of hardware. Those birds have to be a MAJOR expense considering the cost of having one designed, built, launched, and maintained. Not to mention the ground infrastructure that had to be built in parallel. Those are very big costs that won't be recovered any time soon (if ever).
QUOTE]

100% agree. After Howard was signed it became a battle for expensive names for lousy channels.

Oprah, Martha (i know she was there before Howard), The Foxxhole, Playboy Radio, Bob Dylan, BB King, etc. Some of these channels can't be expensive to have but a cut in overhead would not be a bad thing. I'm very surprised that SiriusXM hasn't cut more DJ's and just gone DJ free on a lot of the fringe channels.

It will be interesting to see the next quarterly earnings report, the first one post merger. They cut a lot of channels, a lot of people and a lot of overhead so maybe it will be a little more positive.

 

[Ifandorbut]

maybe they should looking at cutting other expenses that don't actually pay for themselves before looking at The Stern Show. Martha, Oprah, and Jamie Fox would be a good start. It's too bad they can't sell/lease out the sats from one of the services and move all programming to the other set of hardware. Those birds have to be a MAJOR expense considering the cost of having one designed, built, launched, and maintained. Not to mention the ground infrastructure that had to be built in parallel. Those are very big costs that won't be recovered any time soon (if ever).
QUOTE]

100% agree. After Howard was signed it became a battle for expensive names for lousy channels.

Oprah, Martha (i know she was there before Howard), The Foxxhole, Playboy Radio, Bob Dylan, BB King, etc. Some of these channels can't be expensive to have but a cut in overhead would not be a bad thing. I'm very surprised that SiriusXM hasn't cut more DJ's and just gone DJ free on a lot of the fringe channels.

It will be interesting to see the next quarterly earnings report, the first one post merger. They cut a lot of channels, a lot of people and a lot of overhead so maybe it will be a little more positive.

I read a report that suggested that sat radio is operating somewhere between 3 and 4 billion in the red. I don't think giving Jamie Foxx his walking papers is going to make much of a difference.

If the government bail out of the big three U.S. automakers is given the green light, it could help satellite for a time. If they don't get the bail out, sat radio's lifeline will be real tenuous. Trimming big name talent(regardless of how you as a Stern fan feels) would certainly send shock waves throughout the media. If or when that happens, terrestrial radio will be all over that story.

 

[Scales]

The rumour about Stern looking to go back to FM, worried that Sirius XM might fail before they pay him his last 2 big installments of 5 is an interesting one actually, and makes a lot of sense.

He talks a lot about how it is failing without him, and how he could never go back. Those could be tactics to drive his price up.

The time to act is now, he would get better money by locking something in sooner, than later.

If Sirius fails with him on board, not only does that mean money, it would be a big blow to him, and his legacy. He could bail, and rightfully blame it on a bad combination of events, a long costly merger process, into the credit crisis, and then the big 3 auto guys on the verge of bankrupcy. And he could save FM radio.... and then take over a late night talk show like Letterman for a few years, and then retire as the true king that he is.

It is a good thing he was able to sell all his shares early, by special request, because he made $280,000 on them, now it those are worth $9000. Of course, the stock would have not plummeted as bad, had a few guys not dumped a lot of stocks around the same time.

 

[ProperModulation]

If the government bail out of the big three U.S. automakers is given the green light, it could help satellite for a time. If they don't get the bail out, sat radio's lifeline will be real tenuous. Trimming big name talent(regardless of how you as a Stern fan feels) would certainly send shock waves throughout the media. If or when that happens, terrestrial radio will be all over that story.

that was my response to the OPs contention that somehow Howard is the key to the financial recovery of the company. Their debt is so huge that no one action will help them fix the situation. I agree that the auto industry is absolutely the major factor here. If they can't sell OEM radios and subs (and I mean LOTS of radios and subs) they will fail. The retail channel as it has existed for the past couple of years simply cannot sustain the company, much less get them out of their very deep hole.

 

[goreds2]

Mel Karmazin is making 35 million a year fire that toothy bastard.

That is unreal.

The AUTO Makers trying to "Bail Out" are catching some heat because of their CEO's making this kind of money.


I can't believe I am saying this but Mel should take a pay cut well before Mr. Stern.

 

[VinnyM27]

I don't know anything about stock but when I looked up Sirius on the net to see what people were saying about the music changes, I found some videos and other commentary with people implying that Mel was driving down the stock price and wanting to make Sirius private? I don't know how that stuff works so maybe they are right. If that is the case, I can't imagine Howard and others are really happy with Mel (after all, I heard he got he TON of stock...maybe more than whatever his actual paycheck is).

 

[Ifandorbut]

that was my response to the OPs contention that somehow Howard is the key to the financial recovery of the company. Their debt is so huge that no one action will help them fix the situation. I agree that the auto industry is absolutely the major factor here. If they can't sell OEM radios and subs (and I mean LOTS of radios and subs) they will fail. The retail channel as it has existed for the past couple of years simply cannot sustain the company, much less get them out of their very deep hole.

It makes me wonder how satellite would be fairing if XM had signed Howard for a lot less money from their original offer. Sirius would have eventually folded a lot sooner and satellite would have Howard and the amount of subscriptions his signing brought into the equation, but it would have been added into the already successful XM ledger, not onto the struggling Sirius ledger.

I'd have to imagine that if that scenario took place instead of what actually happened, the people that would have been inconvenienced by Sirius' demise would have just come on board to XM eventually anyway. Stern would still have been a millionaire several times over and there would never have been any long and financially draining merger nonsense to deal with.

But that's not how it went down.

 

[VinnyM27]

maybe they should looking at cutting other expenses that don't actually pay for themselves before looking at The Stern Show. Martha, Oprah, and Jamie Fox would be a good start. It's too bad they can't sell/lease out the sats from one of the services and move all programming to the other set of hardware. Those birds have to be a MAJOR expense considering the cost of having one designed, built, launched, and maintained. Not to mention the ground infrastructure that had to be built in parallel. Those are very big costs that won't be recovered any time soon (if ever).

I don't see Howard taking a pay cut. He's much past the point of needing to stay on the air at all costs. I could see him going year to year, or maybe a taking a 2 year deal at his current rate. He last raise at WXRK was 0.0. but I'm betting that this time he actually retires. In the past couple of years we've seen Booey and Robin (who share Howard's agent) make moves to try and make a name for themselves outside the show: Robin's TV project that went nowhere, her "Girls Night Out" charity BS, Booey's acceptance as a Friar, etc... To me this could mean that they see the writing on the wall and know that the Howard Stern gravy train ends on 12/31/2010. When that happens, Sirius will have most likely received their last cent from me...

You bring up some interesting points.

"Martha, Oprah, and Jamie Fox would be a good start."

In comparison to Howard, they aren't making that much. I highly doubt the entire Jamie Foxx channel costs a million. They all have contracts, so Oprah is getting paid whether that channel stays or not so might as well keep it on...and if Oprah gave a shit, I would imagine one of her favorite things would be XM radio, she'd give that shit away this year and those brawds would go crazy. To a lesser extent, same with Martha. Plus, Sirius already looks like programming only for white middle class males...ditching those channels might give it some bad PR that it just doesn't need. Also, the thing they need to do NOW is to make as few waves as possible. I can imagine not renewing those things. I think the idea that contracts are set in stone sort of says it all....You can't make Howard take back the money UNLESS he is truly invested in the company (he is more so than all the other three) and will take a pay cut in order to get more money back in the future.

" her "Girls Night Out" charity BS"
As opposed to worthy shit like dogs...

Yes, Gary joining the Friars' club...what a power move! Although I sort of see what you're saying because he has talked about getting a website up and thinking about the future. Robin's TV show as before Sirius so maybe Robin didn't know if Howard would come back or better yet, she wanted some leverage for when she signed to Sirius....probably didn't help. Something strange that happened though is that a few years back, Robin announced she would be doing a separate Sirius show...that would have been an interesting draw and might have won over some more causal Stern fans. Now what happened with that? I can't imagine Robin wanted crazy money...did she just back off? Did they (and if so....why?). Now that was an interesting move but what happened there.....

 

[DoublEE]

With SIRI now at 14 Cents, Sirius needs some serious money.

Unions in the auto industry will be asked to make concessions for the automakers, Do you think Howard would make pay concessions for the Satellite Radio company?

Maybe an extension of an extra 2 years with no pay?

Maybe just agree no more vacations?

Maybe a 5 day work week?

Come on Howard take one for the team....

Howard wouldn't even through Riley a bone in his new contract...what makes you think he's giving a penny back.:hah:

 

[Die_LaMattres]

He will not part with any of his marbles.