By all accounts, Howard Stern costs Sirius more than $190 / subscriber. Add in his natural born ability to make listeners go "What?" suffice to say, that makes Stern a 360 degree satellite shock jock. Kudos.

If you stand back, though, Sirius seem to be on the nutty side of shocking to pay so much for one character's contract. Just add Stern's costs to the Sirius-XM satellite merger issues, and the general market skepticism about the survival of satellite technology in the face of an ubiquitous iPod, it ain't looking good.

Delving deeper, however, Stern's magnate-style addition to the programing mix has been part of a master plan that could unfold into a backdoor strategy that will save and grow Sirius way into the future.

CEO of Sirius is King

Getting to the nub of the matter, look at the behavior of the guy at the top of Sirius, Mel Karmazin. He is far from a nutcase, and has been buying up Sirius stock to the tune of $10m out of his own pocket, while SIRI has been struggling on Wall St. What does he know that the naysayers don't? He probably knows no more than the next person looking at the facts, but he possibly sees the facts in a different light.

Content is king, satellites are pretenders

At $190 plus per subscriber, Karmazin thinks Stern is a good investment, and in short term truth, Stern has repaid this faith in him by putting enough bums on seats to keep Sirius ticking upwards in line with XM. Without Stern, Sirius would be less attractive, for sure. Those are obvious observations, but look more closely at other content.

Stern is such a mega star, he is dulling the line-up around him. But in truth, NFL and Nascar programing is hardly a marginal offering and there are hundreds of minor stars in the background too. It is the content that Karmazin is probably betting on as he buys shares, not a bet that the rest of the world is smarting at - ie that satellite technology will be the new radio medium forever and a day.

Jobs leads, karmazin follows

Think about it. Steve Jobs saw way beyond a piece of machinery when he marketed the iPod - iTunes double hit. The snazzy iPod hardware helped plant the idea in the public's mind that once you had all your current CDs installed, the meagre MP3 player could be a storage device just a click away from new valuable content that one day would be for sale online - in quantity. The future is now and Apple are going after digital content in a big way. Digital content is where the serious and easy money is, and as a bonus, Apple get to earn trolley loads of income from their hardware.

Karmazin is just a little bit behind the curve, but he too is probably looking at the hardware, ie the satellite technology, purely as a vehicle for the valuable content he has in mind / is acquiring already. Admittedly his technology isn't as great as Apple's, so he won't get as rich on satellite radio boxes as Steve Jobs has on iPods, but he probably doesn't care. His growing stable of content is his golden goose.

To understand where Sirius is heading, I humbly suggest you blow up your Sirius radio! What are you left with? Seriously valuable digital Sirius content that will work on an iPod. Howard Stern would be ready in a heartbeat to stream on your iPod. NFL coverage would work on any digital audio gizmo. The Catholic Channel would sound groovy on your new iPhone. I think it is this potential that Karmazin sees when he buys his so-called worthless stocks.

Conconclusion

What do naysayers and XM shareholders see now? They see satellite technology that is being thumped by iPods. They hear Oprah with her gang of interesting friends, or Opie and his really interesting friend. Satellite is limited, XM are dead. What do you see now? Hopefully that Sirius is the next Disney, albeit, a bluer version.

Phew, thank god for Motley Fool insights, I can sleep better at night with my Sirius shares.

Some shock jocks are good, like Howard Stern. I have no gripe there, which is just as well as I am sure if I got in his line of fire I would end up divorced and picking colors for his wedding to my ex-wife. No, my mini rant is at lame-0's Anthony and Opie.

Anthony and Opie

(I thought that was Oprah Winfrey at first billing!) They have plenty of rude factor in their show, so no lame-o-ness there, but now they are back in their seats after a 30-day suspension, their response was, business as usual. Doh. If that is the case, get ready for another suspension, and another and another, until the show is so neutered it ends up like TV's Opie show minus mega audience giveaways.

Maybe the next potential suspension will be brushed under the carpet in a welter of sincere apologism, but surely, if the shock jocks fell into a sexual assault routine again and apologised as shock jocks should respond - with disdain - XM would have no other option but to take them off air again. (Disdainful response, yes, because it is only radio, and if you don't like them, then turn them off.)

Anyway, however they spin it, it isn't business as usual at all at the Anthony and Opie Show.

Shocking loss of freedom

In my humble opinion the main twist to this particular case is that more freedom of speech has disappeared into hyperspace!! As I said, censoring any radio is dumb, especially satellite radio but, the off button and commonsense self regulation on the part of the listener has been hijacked by knee jerk executive decisions. The independent, I mean partners (with Sirius) satellite radio company have taken shocking jocking into censorship territory after bowing so magnanimously to political, I mean merger correctness?

Instead of censoring, they could mute the transmission I guess. Silent shocking radio, that should bomb as well as Sirius share prices. Or do what the UK government did years ago and made the BBC etc substitute the Sinn Fein politicians' voices with an actor's voice, to somehow diminish the impact of the words!

And another thought. If these shock jocks already moved from terrestial to satellite for unacceptable behavior, where do they go next? Deep Space Radio? Thinking aloud, there are benefits to the new frontiers and, who knows how many gazillions of new listeners they could have? According to some science show I was watching, statistically there are 1 million lumps of rock with the same atmospheric conditions as our little earth, so there must be some alien political leaders out there who won't mind being violated on air.



Thanks to The Motley Fool for inspiring me this sticky Monday morning. They have a pretty neat beta site going on with lots of fun for wannabe stockpickers. Don't take any notice of me, though. I bought AAPL for $8.50 and sold at $20. Now they are $125 and still rising!