It you were too young to experience it at the time, it’s hard to overstate just how huge Howard Stern was in the ‘90s.
While his self-appointed title “King of All Media,” may be a bit much, he had a reach far beyond any other radio broadcaster, hosting the MTV Movie Awards, writing a best-selling autobiography, “Private Parts,” then starring in an adaptation of it, and even making a song with Rob Zombie for the platinum soundtrack. Don Imus could never.
He was also a prolific television producer, and even ran for Governor of New York. (He also continues to openly contemplate running for President; it’s unclear how serious he is.)
Stern, as he readily admits now, built his entire on a very juvenile, fratty style of humor that was often criticized for being demeaning to women, and was very often racially problematic. He’s owned up to that in recent years.
Following the controversy of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl appearance in 2004 (which is now understood, in many quarters, as Jackson getting punished, scapegoated and blacklisted for an accident, likely due to misogyny and racism), the Federal Communications Commission began a crackdown on alleged indecency.
Stern bristled, but also could see which way the winds were shifting. (He also said he felt the FCC was targeting him for his criticism of President Bush.) He signed a then record contract of $500 million with the company then known as Sirius Satellite Radio.
It gave him creative freedom, and also ensured he’d be protected against changes in cultural taste and other mores. He’ll have a dedicated audience until the day he retires. But being on a paid subscription service has arguably decreased his cultural reach, as has the continued splintering of the media landscape.
So if Stern isn’t as huge as he was in the ‘90s, a lot of other things aren’t as big as they were then either, and he’s still massively popular, so much so that the company now known as SiriusXM Pandora (LSXMA) still plays old episodes that Stern has the rights to on one of the company’s two channels dedicated to him.
That use of Stern reruns, which he obtained the rights to in a settlement against CBS Radio in 2006, prompted a lawsuit from a former Stern sidekick.
John Melendez Sued SiriusXm
John Melendez was one of Stern’s sidekicks from “The Howard Stern Show” from 1988 to 2004, before heading to “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” His stage name was Stuttering John, which Stern bestowed upon Melendez due to his lifelong speech impediment.
The name seems problematic and ableist now, and served as an example of how much of Stern’s shock-jock humor has aged poorly, though Melendez does continue to host “The Stuttering John Podcast.”
(It seems Stern and Melendez have had a falling out, for a variety of financial and creative reasons.)
Melendez filed suit two years ago against SiriusXM for reruning old episodes of the “The Howard Stern Show.” He argued that the company purportedly used his name and voice without his express permission, and that a California law gave him the exclusive right to his name and voice.
But a judge dismissed the case at SiriusXM’s request, ruling that federal copyright law preempts state law in that case, and that he was unable to prove that SiriusXM made money off of his name, rather than, as noted by the New York Post, off of the archival episode excerpts they aired that featured his voice.
“The commercial advantage Sirius gains from playing the [Howard Stern Show] Archives and running the advertisements flows from the rebroadcasting of the copyrightable sound recordings themselves, not from Melendez’s identity,” Judge Paul Crotty wrote in an order last year.
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John Melendez Loses Appeal
Melendez appealed the verdict, as his lawyers argued that the show and SiriusXM should have paid him directly for “years of creative work” tied to the program. According to Melendez, he is featured in nearly 13,000 hours of “Stern” archives.
But now, Manhattan's 2nd Circuit Court of appeals has unanimously upheld a lower court’s 2021 decision tossing Melendez’s suit, finding that SiriusXM doesn’t owe Melendez any damages, and that the company promotional materials containing Melendez’s voice were tied to the shows themselves.
“To the extent that Melendez appears in SiriusXM’s promotional material, his appearances are in connection to a product to which he has a very relevant connection, the [Howard Stern] Show, in which he appeared as a prominent cast member for over 15 years,” one judge wrote.
