01-15-2004, 07:29 PM
Here's more info, from today's paper...
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment...6177c.html
Sirius likely to relaunch Opie
and Anthony show
By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Don't be surprised when WNEW exiles Opie and Anthony pop up more and more as June approaches and they prepare to return to the radio.
There are no accidents in the promotion game, at which O&A excel.
Also, don't be surprised if they sign with Sirius Satellite Radio, meaning fans would have to buy a Sirius receiver and pay $12.95 a month.
Opie and Anthony have been off the air since August 2002, when two listeners were arrested for having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral as part of O&A's "Sex for Sam" contest.
WNEW's station manager and program director were fired, and the station soon dumped the whole "hot talk" format O&A had been anchoring.
The two have always implied that they wonder what the big deal was, and they say so again in the new FHM magazine.
They also use the interview to reinforce their irreverence, sniping at WNEW's parent company, Infinity, and complaining because Infinity has been keeping them off the air.
Of course, Infinity has also been paying them millions. But they have always painted themselves, and their fans, as proudly rebellious targets of a disapproving and humorless world, and they're not about to abandon that position.
As for where they will surface in June, three major factors suggest Sirius.
First, satellite has no content rules.
Second, former WNEW program director Jeremy Coleman - a big O&A supporter - now works at Sirius.
Third, Sirius trails rival XM and wants splashy, high-profile programming to close the gap. It recently committed $221million to carry NFL games.
"A hundred channels is nice, but that's not what sells," says Tom Taylor, editor of the trade magazine Inside Radio. "We've seen from cable TV that what sells are specific things people really want that they can't get anywhere else."
Opie and Anthony would likely cost millions. But if they brought Sirius 20,000 new subscribers - a small fraction of their daily audience when they were syndicated out of WNEW - that alone would mean $3.1 million a year in subscription revenue, exclusive of advertising.
Asked if Sirius would be interested in O&A - acknowledging that they are still under contract to Infinity - Sirius vice president of programming Jay Clark says, "You never know. They're very talented guys who are restricted by the rules in commercial radio."
O&A would have to make decisions, too. They would have a smaller audience. Also, part of their shtick on WNEW was getting around content rules with winks and code words. Sometimes graphic is less interesting than suggestive.
But if it worked out, O&A could say they were to satellite radio what MTV was to cable television - the key to popularizing a whole new medium.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment...6177c.html
Sirius likely to relaunch Opie
and Anthony show
By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Don't be surprised when WNEW exiles Opie and Anthony pop up more and more as June approaches and they prepare to return to the radio.
There are no accidents in the promotion game, at which O&A excel.
Also, don't be surprised if they sign with Sirius Satellite Radio, meaning fans would have to buy a Sirius receiver and pay $12.95 a month.
Opie and Anthony have been off the air since August 2002, when two listeners were arrested for having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral as part of O&A's "Sex for Sam" contest.
WNEW's station manager and program director were fired, and the station soon dumped the whole "hot talk" format O&A had been anchoring.
The two have always implied that they wonder what the big deal was, and they say so again in the new FHM magazine.
They also use the interview to reinforce their irreverence, sniping at WNEW's parent company, Infinity, and complaining because Infinity has been keeping them off the air.
Of course, Infinity has also been paying them millions. But they have always painted themselves, and their fans, as proudly rebellious targets of a disapproving and humorless world, and they're not about to abandon that position.
As for where they will surface in June, three major factors suggest Sirius.
First, satellite has no content rules.
Second, former WNEW program director Jeremy Coleman - a big O&A supporter - now works at Sirius.
Third, Sirius trails rival XM and wants splashy, high-profile programming to close the gap. It recently committed $221million to carry NFL games.
"A hundred channels is nice, but that's not what sells," says Tom Taylor, editor of the trade magazine Inside Radio. "We've seen from cable TV that what sells are specific things people really want that they can't get anywhere else."
Opie and Anthony would likely cost millions. But if they brought Sirius 20,000 new subscribers - a small fraction of their daily audience when they were syndicated out of WNEW - that alone would mean $3.1 million a year in subscription revenue, exclusive of advertising.
Asked if Sirius would be interested in O&A - acknowledging that they are still under contract to Infinity - Sirius vice president of programming Jay Clark says, "You never know. They're very talented guys who are restricted by the rules in commercial radio."
O&A would have to make decisions, too. They would have a smaller audience. Also, part of their shtick on WNEW was getting around content rules with winks and code words. Sometimes graphic is less interesting than suggestive.
But if it worked out, O&A could say they were to satellite radio what MTV was to cable television - the key to popularizing a whole new medium.
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