Traders Cooperative

[Joe Stocks]

HOWARD'S RETURN TO FREE AIR RUMORED
By JOHN MAINELLI

September 19, 2006 -- Howard Stern may be coming back to earth - on WPLJ or WABC. Radio insiders are reporting rampant rumors that the shock jock will "do an Opie & Anthony" and return to old-fashioned radio from the obscurity of satellite radio.

Persistent industry chatter says "some sort of mega-deal's brewing among Sirius [Satellite] chief Mel Karmazin, Stern and Mel's longtime associate Farid Suleman," says Inside Radio editor Tom Taylor. Suleman currently runs Citadel Broadcasting, which is buying Disney/ABC's radio division, including WPLJ (95.5 FM) and WABC (770 AM). In his widely read tradesheet, Taylor said the rumors "just won't die, despite what Stern and Sirius have said in the past." This much is certain: Stern has complained loudly of late about published reports that he's lost his influence and is no longer a "watercooler topic" since he bolted from CBS for Sirius in a $500 million deal last January.

His celebrity-guest bookings have all but dried up and sidekick Artie Lange's new movie "Beer League" bombed over the weekend in spite of heavy hype on Stern's show. The Post's Page Six reported last week that since his move to pay radio, traffic to Stern's Web site was down a whopping 71 percent and his search-engine action plunged a staggering 90 percent. "Terrestrial radio is so scared of this broadcast that they've even hired a full-time publicist to slander and disparage me and try to make me look like a failure," Stern told Sirius listeners last week.