Reading Between the Lines

February 7, 2006

Howard mentioned that he read the current issue of Radio & Records Magazine yesterday, an activity he said he doesn’t usually like to do. Howard noted that, of course, there was a page-one story about him and that he wanted The Howard 100 News to do an investigation to discover if the publication has a “vested interest in seeing satellite fail.” Howard then explained that, according to a 1,000-person survey in Radio & Records Magazine, 86 percent of people in this country aren’t likely to subscribe to satellite radio. Howard acknowledged that this figure could look bad, at least until you look a little more closely. Howard estimated that, since there are roughly 300 million people in the United States, if 14 percent of the population actually does subscribe to satellite, that means that about 42 million people will become subscribers. Howard went on to comment that, with the possible exception of Oprah, he couldn’t think of an entertainer who could attract such a sizable audience to a new medium. After Robin pointed out that Oprah only gets 7 million viewers a day to her show, Howard said that Oprah does everything right, with the latest example being the way she was photographed at a service held yesterday for Coretta Scott King. Howard then played a clip of Daniel Carver eulogizing “Cowetta,” as he called her, before playing clips of Oprah discussing her relationship with Coretta.