Stemming Stern This weekend, 70 percent of the U.S. will see Howard’s latest foray into late night TV. by Jim Hanas aturday night, shock-jock Howard Stern will unveil his stab at broadcast television. Developed by CBS, The Howard Stern Radio Show will air on 12 of the 14 stations owned by the network and in other markets where it has been sold in syndication to a mix of affiliated and independent stations. Earlier this month, distribution reached more than 70 percent of television households nationwide, the threshold beyond which advertisers recognize a program as truly “national.” Not suited for this market? As of early this week, however, Memphis was set to be part of the 30 percent that won’t see the show. Sternheads, needless to say, have come out in force. Jim Kilboy, who recently agitated for the restoration of “Solid Rock” at WMFS-FM 92.9, called me up last week, thinking out loud about a letter-writing campaign against local CBS affiliate WREG-TV Channel 3; and at least one e-mail directed to the station has come across my desk admonishing 3 for allegedly buckling under to the “right-wing Christian Bible beaters in this town who would raise holy hell if you aired Stern’s show.” Hey there, guys. Not so fast. True, Channel 3 is not airing the show. In fact, the station’s general manager Bob Eoff didn’t even sit for the pitch from Eyemark Entertainment, CBS’s distribution arm. “If you look at all the other programming we have on the station, it just doesn’t fit us,” he says, throwing in the wonderfully unedgy fact that Channel 3’s double shot of warmed-over Cheers episodes actually won the Saturday late-night time slot during May sweeps. Lame, but true. Other stations did talk to Eyemark, however, but none were swayed. “I did hear the pitch, and they wanted an awful lot for it,” says Julie Scobey, program coordinator at WMC-TV Channel 5. Being an NBC affiliate, WMC was at best a long shot for the show, which was hatched in large part to compete with Saturday Night Live. “In our case, we’re booked,” says Marshall Hart, director of operations for WPTY-TV Channel 24 and WLMT-TV Channel 30. “In my opinion they came out with it late.” Channel 24 features a weekly movie presentation, Popcorn Theater, in the timeslot in question, and 30 runs NYPD Blue. WHBQ-TV Fox 13 is the only station where Stern could conceivably land in the near future, if only because the station is owned by Fox – a company known for keeping a tight leash on its affiliates – and some sort of deal could come through at the network level. But Stern fans shouldn’t hold their breath. “The show’s been out there for a while,” says Fox 13 programming director John Koski, “and I haven’t had any discussion with my people in the home office about it.” In other words, those with the power to put Stern on the air in Memphis seem ambivalent about his foray into broadcast television, perhaps because area audiences have reacted similarly to his radio show. WMC’s Scobey, for example, cites Stern’s relatively soft radio numbers, saying she was concerned that the TV show “was not well-suited to the market.” Stern’s morning radio show, which has only been airing on WMFS for two years, pulled an 8.6 percent share of male listeners 18 to 34 in the most recent Arbitron ratings. In markets where Stern has been on the air longer, such as Cleveland, he grabs about four times that. Poor radio ratings have something to do with Stern being snubbed by area TV stations, but so does the sketchiness of the details that have been released about what the show will, you know, be. According to a publicist, it will combine footage from the radio show, like Stern’s show on the E! network, plus some original content. Canadian stations even decided recently to delay premiering the show until they’d had a chance to see the first episode, and apparently Eyemark’s pitch did little to fill local TV execs in. “I think in their pitch they gave me a copy of his movie and that was about it,” says WMC’s Scobey. Without compelling numbers and with so little to go on, it’s no surprise that local stations took a pass. Besides, if the Stern show were to air in Memphis, the biggest winner might not be a television station at all, but WMFS, a stand-alone radio station that has staked its future on the Stern franchise, a franchise that competes indirectly with three of five local television stations by competing with their corporate radio cousins. “I can kind of see where the roadblocks might be with stations who have radio affiliates,” says WMFS general manager Sherry Chimenti. “For them to air it would lend credence to his power as an entertainer.” In other words, if WMFS were owned by WMC or Stern was on Clear Channel-owned Rock 103, we might be picking up the kegs for the premiere party right now.