Stern duped his loyal listeners, or a significant amount of us. As others, I purchased a few Sirius units once Stern announced his move a few years ago.

Stern hijacked us once on Sirius. He used this platform as someone with judicial independence.

His politic ran rampant, politics which over the last 20-years contrasted that of his preaching nowadays.

His bashing of Republicans was so out of control that he failed to realize that an enormous amount of his listeners are conservatives. I for one dropped Sirius, tossed the radios, and now listen to FM radio and my IPod.

You bring up an interesting point, which is how relative and mushy the idea of success is. And you're right, you can reframe anything to be a successs. (We see this most often during Presidential campaigns, but those of us with smaller national profiles reframe often as well.)

That Stern's show has better interviews now is a nice result of the switch.

However I happen to think that one of Stern's own measures of success is how much power he has, and in the world of radio, power is number of listeners, and I don't think he thought he'd lose so many.

Whether or not Sirius feels like the move is a success – that is different. They did not have the listeners to lose that Stern did.

Penelope

Of course, in ANY analysis, you can color the debate and numbers in your favor but 4-5 million new subscribers in the first half of 2006 was more than Sirius bargained for as they were actually unprepared for the high demand. With the new portable satelitte receiver device coming out and online streaming, the last barrier to adoption will be hurdled.

Personally speaking I always found his obsession with sex, masturbation and porn stars to get very tedious very fast but I have heard some of the best interviews heard anywhere on his show recently, which is now uncensored.
The Dixie Chicks, golfer John Daly and recently outed Star Trek icon, Georges Takei interviews are among the most entertaining and candid you will ever hear and the switch to FCC free airwaves has dramatically increased the quality of the show and actually made Stern relevant again since he was floating in a sea of shock jock imitators on the FM dial.

If any venture can succeed financially and creatively, it is usually called a success.

Your post isnt.

Today's society is one of no cost and no effort. People WILL pay but only through advertising or a smart method of automatic payment or an iTunes type concept.

Good job on identifying the laziness of society and warning others who've benefited that they didn't benefit only because they were good, but also because their audience was lazy.