Tag stern show problems

If you aren’t a Stern fan the next few paragraphs will mean nothing to you, feel free to jump ahead.

So I have been a Stern show listener since the late 90’s.  I jumped right on board and started paying my monthly fee to Sirius when he left terrestrial radio back in 2006, I enjoyed the show that much.  The first few years on satellite were awesome.  Being freed from the constraints of regular radio resulted in some incredibly different, creative and entertaining content.

The start of the decline was when Stern announced he was no longer doing 5 days a week, the show would now only run Mondays-Thursdays plus the nearly two months of vacation they take on top of that.  When that first reduction in content was announced I recall ranting about it pretty hard.  However upon reflection the reality was Howard was approaching 60 years old and he certainly has earned the right to work as much or as little as he wants.

Well the last 3-4 years have seen a further reduction in the content being provided by the two Stern channels on Sirius.  The list of cuts is pretty staggering.  Almost all of the one off shows that used to run on 101 are gone.  Instead they have filled 101 with almost nothing but reruns, except for the occasional Riley Martin show or Jay Thomas (whom I find un-listenable)

Howard TV, the video part of the show that provided the visual portion of the entertainment experience was shut down with little to no explanation on air from Howard.  The departure of the tv content meant the departure of a number of people whose on air personalities were entertaining and interesting as well.  Despite my dislike of his political views, I really miss hearing Scott DePace on air among others.

The Howard News team has been slowly pruned back as well, their staff and on air minutes have dwindled down to next to nothing.  John Leiberman, who is extremely good, had his own short daily show that also vanished for some unknown reason.  Lisa G, another long time news crew member departed recently, again with little to no on air discussion about the reasons.

Finally, Howard trimmed yet another day off his broadcasting schedule, now only doing live shows Monday-Wednesday.  Having only 3 days has had some additional side effects besides the obvious shortage of live content.  The shows have become overly interview-centric.  Howard is a good interviewer and for the most part the interviews are interesting but they take up way too much show time now that there are only 60% of the broadcast hours there used to be.  The best part of the show was the unscripted interactions between Howard and the staff.  There just is not much time to allow those type of interactions to develop when you have two or three celebrity interviews lined up every show.

Speaking of celebrity interviews, they made another recent change that made no sense.  In an effort to offer fans at least a little more live content the channels put on The Wrap Up Show where topics from that day’s show are discussed.  The Wrap Up Show used to be a round table of various Stern staffers discussing/arguing various points.  It was funny and entertaining to hear the staff be able to expand on their points of view while not being under the ADD arm of Howard who runs out of patience quickly when anyone other than himself is talking.

Some genius totally scrapped that format.  Now the Wrap Up Show consists of Gary and John talking to random “celebrities”, most of which the audience knows little about, each day about the show.  It totally removed any enjoyment I got from TWUS.  I have no interest in hearing some 3rd party I know little to nothing about who happens to like the show talk about it.  Give me more Sal, Ronnie, Richard, JD, and the rest of the back office crew.  Even on their worst day they are funnier than what TWUS has been putting on air nowadays.

There are many more examples of subtractions from the show (why no discussion of Tim Sabean leaving, interns, Jackie, Bubba) I could lay out but you get the drift.

Howard is approaching the end of his second 5 year Sirius contract and as he usually does, he has been waffling about his intentions to sign back up.  He is now something like 61 years old so it would seem to most that would be a good time to call it quits.  I am starting to come to that same conclusion but not because I don’t think Howard still has “it”.  He still has all the tools/staff at his disposal to make great content.  But if his intentions are to become more and more like a dirtier version of Barbara Walters while pulling back on all the other parts of the show that brought us all so many laughs in the past I am just not that interested.  It’s frustrating to me that despite his clear intent to produce less live content personally, Howard seems unwilling to let other members of his staff step in to fill the void.  Man I would love to see/hear a Sal and Richard show.

One much shorter show related rant has to do with Survivor, a show I still enjoy and had it’s 30th season finale on Wednesday.  I don’t understand why they decided to make the finals of the show three players instead of two several years ago.  It dilutes the ending of the show and pretty much everytime, one of the three people in the finals gets zero votes.  I would love to know how the producers of the show think 3>2 in this scenario.  I can’t imagine any explanation that makes sense.

Last night we did the big integration of the two sets of chicks.  When I got home Cindy was inside the chicken run that has been in the garage.  She was trying to attach some plastic netting to allow us to flip the run upside down and use the netting as a retractable roof.  She had been working hard in cramped spaces and was not having fun.

Perhaps that is why she did not immediately warm up to my alternative suggestion of carting the main chicken tractor up to the garage and letting all 11 chicks hang out there.  After all they will be living in the tractor for around another month yet outdoors so I figured it would be good to get them used to it.  Like I said Cindy at first was skeptical since it was not quite as long as the chicken run.  I told her I was positive it would be enough space for the chicks plus it has the deluxe second level coop accommodations they can hang in as well.

I carted the coop up to the garage from the back yard and we worked on getting it ready.  Once it was set up we first let the older chicks in.  They have been in the chicken tractor outside a few times so it wasn’t a big deal to them.  When we added the younger chicks in things got interesting.  At first we were very surprised, a couple of the younger chicks were actually acting aggressively towards the older, bigger ones.  Later on some of the older chicks were picking on the younger birds.   Despite the squabbles I thought it actually could be more dramatic.  All of the chicks shared food/water side by side at one point or another so long term I think they will be fine.  At this point there seems to be a clear light chick/dark chick segregation going on.  The five youngsters and six older chicks mostly group up with their own flock.  Cindy and I can’t wait till it’s one big happy feathered family.

I am looking forward to my four day long Memorial Day weekend.  Having 4 days off gives me time to get stuff done and still be able to stretch out and smell the roses, or play WoW.