PD Weighs In On Stern's Debut

If you've been on a tropical island the past two days, you may not have known that former CBS/Infinity morning man Howard Stern made his "off-air" debut Monday on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Plain Dealer pop culture writer John Petkovic was listening Monday, and checks in with his review of "The King of All Media"'s satellite radio debut. Though we heard the opening show as well, the most we've heard of Stern in his entire radio career, we won't spend a lot of time on what happened on a show that is not carried anymore on over-air radio.

But there's a nominal local angle here...Stern's former local affiliate, CBS Cleveland classic rocker WNCX/98.5, has been bombarding local TV with ads for replacement David Lee Roth. The ads for the new show featuring the former Van Halen star are, well, weird. But they air often. A lot. We don't watch a lot of commercial TV, but we've probably seen one Roth ad or another roughly 20 times since Sunday.

On his maiden Sirius voyage, Stern had some advice for Roth, including telling him not to surround himself with "yes" men who told him how good his panned interview with his Uncle Manny was on Monday. (This advice, by the way, came from a man who programs "news" shows on his Sirius channels solely about his own show and universe around it.)

Where go the Northeast Ohio Stern listeners? Probably, OMW guesses they'll scatter to the winds. Some will shell out the $50 for a radio and $12.95 a month for Stern. Some will land with another Stern replacement, WXRK's Rover. Some will sample from a menu ranging from WMJI's John Lanigan...to WTAM's Wills & Coleman...to syndicated guy talkers Bob & Tom on Canton rocker WRQK.

And some will stick around with Roth on WNCX. But it's generally thought that the former rocker will have to turn up his game to have a chance of long-term success...even to a moderate degree.