Its been no secret that since Howard Stern left CBS for Sirius, the CBS radio markets with David Lee Roth hosting the morning show have suffered dramatic ratings dips. As I've said before, Stern made things easy for the CBS suits to sell ads and they are spiraling without him.

It was apparent from the first few weeks of his show, that David Lee Roth was not going to last very long. Criticism was immediate and widespread. It seems the low ratings may have finally taken their toll and CBS reportedly has been working behind the scenes to bring "shock jocks" Opie & Anthony over to CBS from XM Radio. Sort of a Stern-in-reverse move.

If this goes down, this will be a clear move to attempt to lure back some Stern listeners who haven't yet bought Sirius and instead have simply turned the dial. CBS fired the pair back in 2002 when they aired a live broadcast of a couple having sex in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral. It'll be interesting to see if Opie & Anthony can make their smutty schtick work on terrestrial radio in the post-Janet Jackson nip slip era. One report has the pair staying at XM for the "uncensored" version of their show, with a cleaned up version for CBS. This may be a boon for XM, who has seen Sirius close the listener gap since Stern's arrival, since fans listening to the clean O&A may become curious enough to tune into XM to get the dirty stuff.

Labels: David Lee Roth