The success of Howard Stern’s syndicated radio show 25 years ago today, directly and indirectly began the decline of local personalities across the radio industry
In the 1960’s legendary radio DJ Jocko Henderson use to travel by train between Philadelphia and New York City to host his daily radio program in both cities. In the 1980’s Tom Joyner became known as “The Fly Jock” as he hosted mornings in Dallas at K104 KKDA and afternoons in Chicago at 107.5 WGCI, while racking up 7 million frequent flier miles. But it was 25 years ago today that the radio industry changed forever as CBS Radio (Infinity Radio at the time) decided to syndicate The Howard Stern Show from a radio studio in one city to another city. K-ROCK 92.3 (WXRK) in New York sent their feed to Philadelphia’s rock station 94.1 WYSP.
At the time in 1986, syndicating an entire show was in it’s infancy and many radio experts were of the opinion that broadcasting a morning show from one market to another geographic area simultaneously was never going to work. However it did work and quite well. Soon after Stern was syndicated to Washington, D.C. and rest was as they say is history. Howard Stern left terrestrial radio in 2005 and now does his broadcasting on Sirius Satellite Radio for a hefty sum of $500 million a year.
Philly.com takes a look back at the Howard Stern syndication experiment.
With those seven words, Howard Stern began in earnest his inexorable march toward becoming the multimedia phenomenon we know…” read more
