'Shock jock' Stern kicked out
2004-02-27 08:39
New York - Top US "shock jock" Howard Stern has been dumped by radio giant Clear Channel - the most high-profile victim to date of the backlash that followed Janet Jackson's breast-baring stunt at the Super Bowl.
Stern lashed out on Thursday at Clear Channel executives, accusing them of using the post-Jackson panic over broadcasting standards as an excuse to pull him off the air-waves.
"They've been after me since 1992, and they're having their way with me," Stern said. "Then Janet Jackson whipped out her boob and it's all over."
Clear Channel, the largest US radio operator with more than 1 200 outlets, dropped Stern from six stations that carry his show, citing its new "zero tolerance" policy toward material deemed offensive.
"Clear Channel drew a line in the sand with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content and Howard Stern's show blew right through it," Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan said on Wednesday.
"It was vulgar, offensive and insulting, not just to women and African Americans but to anyone with a sense of common decency."
The offending show involved an on-air interview between Stern and Rick Salomon, the man who posted a videotape of himself having sex with hotel heiress Paris Hilton on the internet.
According to a transcript, Stern repeatedly questioned Salomon on the subject of anal sex, and then a caller employed a racist epithet to ask Solomon if he had ever had sex with a famous black woman.
Stern's show is syndicated by Infinity Broadcasting, a unit of Viacom, which also owns television networks CBS and MTV.
It was MTV that produced the now infamous Super Bowl half-time show - aired on CBS - during which Justin Timberlake ripped a part of Janet Jackson's costume, exposing her right breast to 100 million primetime viewers.