Hollander: Infinity Gets Wider Advertising Pool With Howard Gone

The departure of Howard Stern is one of the biggest events in U.S. radio in years. Now we know how Infinity Broadcasting intends to respond to that loss.
The company is using 10 different solutions to replace Stern when he leaves the company to go to satellite radio. The company hopes to syndicate some of its new programming beyond its owned stations as some of the material gains traction, and expects to announce more in a month or so.
Losing Stern constitutes an opportunity, Chairman Joel Hollander told reporters in making the announcement – an opportunity to gain advertisers that wouldn’t buy time on Stern such as American Express and Mercedes Benz.
Infinity is using a combination of entertainment talent who have not done radio before, such as singer David Lee Roth and comedian Penn Jillette, and local DJs, such as the Sports Junkies in Washington, to craft regional morning shows.
“There’s a brand new personality coming through in the imaging. We anticipate these stations will gain a wider audience (because of the changes)and because they’ll also be streamed,” said Hollander.
He alluded to a “significant” advertising budget to be allocated to promoting the new morning shows in TV, outdoor and the Internet in the affected markets.
The choices Infinity made to replace Stern evolved over a 10-month period. Given that, Hollander hopes listeners and the industry would judge the replacement programming for Howard Stern over a 12-to-24-month period, rather than in January.