There have been recent rumors that Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed "King of all Media" and SIRIUS Satellite Radio mega-performer, and one of the most highly-paid talents in the biz, may be headed back to terrestrial radio, maybe even CBS.
No one is talking on the record, but given Sirius' current financial state, (it has nearly $3.4 billion of debt, and although it was bought out by EchoStar, it still faces some significant payments in the future, according to the WSJournal) the idea of a Stern comeback to commercial radio could make sense, and there's been rumblings that CBS would make a significant offer to lure one of it's prized radio assets back to Blackrock.
Stern has been with Sirius since late 2006. He reportedly earned an $83 million stock dividend as a result of signing up nearly 6 million subscribers to the fledgling service in January 2007. Since that time, the state of satellite radio's financial position has been dramatically down-sized due to the sagging economy.
There's no guarantee that CBS would make a formal offer to Stern, nor is it set in stone that he'd leave his satellite radio program for now, but given current economic market conditions, anything's possible.
It should be pointed out that Stern is still under contract with Sirius, but has buyout clauses in the contract.
*******
UPDATE: According to a late report from the NY Times, Sirius XM is preparing a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing, sometime within the next 11 days.
Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment