Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell uses his May 18 column to criticize NBC for allowing Howard Stern to be a judge on "America's Got Talent":
Howard Stern has not been missed since he took his smutty shtick off the airwaves and onto the unregulated Sirius satellite radio.
His super fans — the brainiacs still playing their VHS tapes of a Stern show called "Butt Bongo Fiesta" — have made the satellite radio chiefs happy, but Stern has almost vanished as an icon of pop culture. He even scaled back his radio schedule to three days a week, semi-retiring.
So why in the blazes would NBC make the decision to revive his career by bringing him on as a judge of their summer talent show "America's Got Talent," a family show watched by millions of children? They knew exactly what they were buying. They just never stop believing that shock will sell.
Meanwhile, Bozell has been silent about another network that has worked to mainstream another shock jock banished to satellite radio -- probably because Bozell himself also appears on that same channel.
As we've detailed, Sean Hannity regularly has as a panelist on his Fox News show Anthony Cumia, of the radio team Opie and Anthony -- most recently on May 17. Bozell appears as a weekly guest on Hannity's show, despite the fact that he has long been critical of Opie and Anthony and their outrageous stunts.
Assume that Bozell will keep his hypocritical silence about his friend Hannity giving a forum to what even Bozell admits is an offensive shock jock.
