Suing Stern

I tend not to dwell on the past.  I try to look forward where there is opportunity.

This was a gift of my upbringing as an army brat.  Every June we moved to a new army base or a new town and I forgot all the friends I made and got ready to make new friends.  I am long on optimism and short on sentimentality.  That’s who I am.

So when I look at the lawsuit that CBS Radio filed against Howard Stern yesterday, I just shake my head.  Why focus on the past?  Stern was a huge money maker for many years for CBS Radio.  Surely he profited from the Sirius deal at the expense of CBS and maybe he took liberties that he shouldn’t have.  But who really cares?

What has to happen now is for Stern to figure out how to make money for himself and Sirius (and as a huge stockholder of Sirius I bet he’s focused on the big picture there).  And Joel Hollander and Les Moonves should focus on the future of CBS Radio.

Every ounce of energy that goes into this fight over the past (this sure looks like a divorce, doesn’t it), is wasted energy that should be going into the future.

Bob Lefsetz (my latest great blog find) says it best in his post:

As for Howard…  If you’re not listening to Sirius, you’ve got no idea
how good he is, as good, if not better, than ever.  But almost nobody
knows this, almost nobody talks about his show anymore, because as
stated earlier, almost nobody HEARS IT!  I’d say this is problematic
for Howard, but he’s gone on record that escaping the FCC was enough,
he doesn’t need everybody listening (not that I wholly believe that.)
But that’s Howard’s plight.  Terrestrial radio is a different ball
game.  They hold the cards.  They own the market share.  They own the
dominant incompatible format, just like Apple does with the iPod.  The
key is to CAPITALIZE ON IT!  Not to complain about what you once had or
what your competitors are doing.

Exactly.