Howard Stern has made the move from "Terrestrial Radio" to Subscription radio after signing an exclusive contract for 5 years at $500 Million, an unheard of amount at the time he negotiated it. To be fair you have to factor in the cost of the show and it's payroll comes out of his deal.

Originally slated to be commercial free uncensored talk radio and marketed that way to his die-hard listeners with lifetime subscriptions available or a monthly or annual fee. The commercials were quick to appear as well as the crew taking Fridays off, but due to an ill-advised lawsuit against Howard by CBS Radio division, Howard was able to recoup his tapes of programs that were held by CBS. This was a major grab on Howard's part as it enabled him to comb through hundreds of hours of raw material and organize them into a library of valuable content that would fill in time slots when Howard and his crew were away from the studio.

I have been a listener to the Stern Show for over 20 years and have always found him to be insightful, entertaining, honest and above all cutting edge in his thoughts and views of the world and it's problems. Everything is fair game on the Stern Show whether it be attacking his employees for making mental errors or pointing out flaws in their personalities. He sates whatever he feels and he is normally a sound and thoughtout kind of guy.

The show has assembled a great cast over the years with the talented Fred Norris manning the sound board to instinctively push the right button at the right time and keeping the pace of the show at an enjoyable clip.

Robin Quivers is the voice of reason for Howard to bounce off of and make sure that he does not go completely over the top when he discusses subjects such as tragedies, molestation, murder and other heinous acts. She also maintains a semblance of normalcy by provided news items that she has gleaned from whatever papers and magazines that come to the station. Over time Robin has taken on an air of royalty and thin skin, but she still allows her personal life to be discussed at length whether its a conversation about high colonics, boyfriends, masturbatory techniques, or her dalliances into the hobbies of the rich such as horses, boats, auto racing and charities.

Baba-Booey or Gary Dell-Abate has been Howard's producer for many years, known to the listeners as a horse-toothed whipping boy for Howard's mood swings. It is Gary's job to book talent on the show which had always been an easy job due to the syndication of the Stern Show created a clamoring of entertainers, politicians, authors & porn-stars eager to be heard on the biggest audience on radio. At any given moment tens of millions of prime demographic listeners could be reached by subjecting themselves to Howard and his rants. This area has fallen off considerably due to the subscribers have pretty much leveled out at 12-16 million listeners on satellite radio and the show has taken a palpable hit because of it. Howard Stern will always have his tried and true friends/guests that will appear any time they are asked but current newsmakers can wave off the appearance requests and chalk it up to listeners rather than to the fear of the unknown questions Howard might ask them.

Richard Christy and Sal Governale were added to the show just prior to it moving to Sirius as writers/comedians a job that used to belong to "Stuttering" John Melendez before he jumped ship to become Jay Leno's announcer on NBC's Tonight Show. it remains to be seen whether John will keep his job with Jay moving to an earlier time slot.

The resident comedian whose job was to feed lines to Howard when a subject was  being brought up was, for as long as I have been listening, Jackie "the Jokeman" Martling. Jackie has the uncanny ability to remember every joke he has ever heard regardless of funniness. Also in the early days Billy West provided some great impersonations to go along with news stories or skits that were performed on a regular basis. Billy left to move to Los Angeles and provided the voices to many cartoon series like Ren & Stimpy and several others. Today's resident comedian extraordinaire is none other than the troubled and talented Artie Lang, a rotund stand-up who is loaded with personal stories about his life so far warts and all. I just don't see him passing joke notes to Howard as the comic job was origially devised. Artie's problems like anyone else who has been employed by Howard are an open target for discussion on air much to Artie's chagrin.

Now you have the background of how and what Howard Stern has created and packaged to become the best radio show in the history of radio broadcasting. So with the move to an uncensored version of this uniquely enjoyable 4 hour block of morning drive, you would think it can't miss...right?

I thought so too...the money problems of satellite radio has managed to permeate the inner sanctum of Howard's show to the point of it has monopolized the show's content. This has become a catalyst for Howard to constantly announce a retirement date of 2010 due to the financials of Sirius making it not able to re-sign Howard at his current salary which would mean cuts all around for the crew. They have all tasted incredible wealth for this short period of time and I'm sure that they have all lived up to this salary in their personal lives.

Meanwhile the show has reverted to re-playing phone bits and song parodies to the point of every day feeling like a repeat show. Artie provides material by sleeping on the job, coming off of whatever drug he has taken the night before or telling stories over and over again, many times speaking over Howard Stern to finish his story.

Sal and Richard contribute in their own dysfunctional way by submitting homo-erotic skits, farting stunts or an occasional phony phone call to supply bumpers to go in or out of the program.

Howard meanwhile is putting the finishing touches on his house in the Hamptons, creating a monstrous behemoth of a structure that will more than likely have all of the toys that money can buy and who would want to leave that to do a stinking radio show?

Fred maintains his job as well as he has ever done although he doesn't participate at all unless he is asked and then in mono-syllable responses.

I still listen and subscribe to the show out of allegiance or habit or anticipation that life will eventually return to this show that I loved so much. The freedom of pay-radio has not really been met with very much originality save for an occasional Sybian ride or matchmaking game. The guests are more at ease to say what they feel like saying, the only problem with that is I don't care about this level of guests. The Power of Stern still resonates within the entertainment industry, a look at Google Trends will bare that out as whatever is mentioned does show up as most googled more often than not.

Now I feel that Howard Stern is a guilty pleasure for those fans who have always listened to him and remember fondly all of the days that you laughed hysterically and identified with Howard's sense of humor and the way he looks at things. I guess it is true when they say that "Money Changes Everything."