News.com’s Media blog has an item by Harry Fuller on Monday referencing stats that AdAge had pulled together regarding Howard Stern’s current ad value on SIRIUS as opposed to when he was on terrestrial radio. While Fuller is spot on to say that the ads are obviously costing less for the advertiser, the audience is less, CPM is different, and SIRIUS is also taking into consideration its overall subscriber dollars, which traditional radio didn’t have to factor in.
Sure, it means that they aren’t commanding the same “pound for pound” rates that Stern garnered before based on his show on its own merit, but is that such a terrrible thing? I guess it’d be very different if we had SIRIUS talking about how much they were ruing the fact that they had Stern and weren’t making as much cash - in this argument (we all know they’re not) - then this would be a different discussion. But we can’t just sit here and ignore the fact that subs are PAYING to listen to Stern in the first place.
