With just over a year left on his contract, Infinity Chief Operating Officer Joel Hollander isn't concerned that Howard Stern's remaining days with the company will be a commercial for Sirius Satellite Radio. He spoke to investors at the UBS Media Week Conference, and fully expects Stern to finish his existing deal with Infinity, which runs out at the end of 2005.
"If you give me a check for about $100 million, I'll take him off tomorrow," Hollander said. "I certainly don't love the fact that he's on the air talking about satellite radio. But it is overblown, in fairness to him."
Of course, Hollander was making light of Satellite Radio's influence. "I just think it's a boutique business; I don't think it's a mass appeal business," he said.
"It's survived every new technology advance of the last 50 years. It's not going away. It's still a $20 billion business. And the irrational exuberance is that there's 290 million people that listen to radio every day in the United States, and [satellite radio has] 4 million subscribers."
He was also dismissive of Sirius' NFL package, valued at $220 million. "The NFL," he said. "It's not exclusive, so let's see: You can get the NFL on over-the-air TV, cable, satellite, free radio, and now satellite [radio]. I can't see how you make money on that deal, when predominantly, people are either jumping in and out of their car, or they go in and out of their house to watch the game on TV."
He's comments aren't really surprising as it's not just the radio industry, but Hollander's job, we're talking about here. Does he really think Satellite Radio isn't here to stay?!
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