Bubba The Love Sponge And Sirius XM May Agree To Terms After All
It what can only be described as a soap opera gone wild, Sirius XM Radio and Bubba The Love Sponge may still have a sparkle of life in a new deal that would keep the shock jock on satellite radio. SiriusBuzz learned this morning through an announcement on the Howard Stern Show that the King of All Media intends to discuss the issue with management as soon as possible. Bubba The Love Sponge could be back on Sirius XM with a schedule that would match the current one day per week exclusive broadcast, but the radio shock jock and his staff are free to pursue other ventures as well, including unique programming for Internet Radio start-up RadioIO.
SiriusBuzz reported here on New Years Eve that it appeared that the Bubba and Sirius XM negotiations had reached an impasse and that a frustrated Bubba began telling fans to cancel their subscriptions. Over the weekend I reached out to Brent Hatley from the show at his home to see where the dust was settling, and to let him know that I would like to do a piece on whatever their next ventures were. Hatley indicated that there was a slight chance that the Sirius XM deal may be resurrected, but that he was not really sure. He also indicated that he would be programming a few of his own channels on RadioIO, a project he is excited about.
For right now Bubba is indeed off the air at Sirius XM. His usual programming slot will be filled by Mamory Lane for the time being.
Bubba The Love Sponge has been a staple on Sirius XM’s Howard Stern channels since even before Stern arrived at the satellite radio provider. Over the years he has gone from exclusive to satellite to shared deals with terrestrial radio. At times I have been very critical of Bubba’s on air negotiations, and while there are passionate fans that support his every move, there are many fans who do not like the way Bubba tends to burn bridges. He is a very reactionary person, and sometimes would be better served to take pause before lashing out.
I still stand behind my statements that Bubba, while very talented, is taking things too far. His show sometimes becomes a drama-fest, which can have listeners tuning away from the show rather than tuning in. In fairness I can understand some of Bubba’s frustration, but in all honesty, he is not the only shock jock available to fans and that works against him in negotiations. By contrast deals with personalities like Martha Stewart give exclusivity and cache with a demographic Sirius XM would like to see grow. So while Martha does make a good payday, she is offering something Bubba can’t. He simply is not the number one shock jock, and only the number one scores a big payday. Howard still carries that torch. It is the economics and reality of the situation.
On his terrestrial radio show today Bubba read the article from SiriusBuzz that was critical of him, and even encouraged his fans to do a little Twitter harassment. I understand his frustration with my opinion, but if nothing else Bubba knows I am a fair person, which is why I had reached out to the show over the weekend to get additional details on the RadioIO deal, and spoke to Brent as recently as an hour before this piece published.
The official launch of the Bubba channel on RadiIO will happen on January 10th and will feature a main channel as well as “sub-channels” for Brent, Manson, Ned, and Spice. These sub-channels will feature music, talk, and other programming that the team is excited about. Details of these RadioIO channels will be available Wednesday January 5th. Listeners will be able to stream the Bubba Show each day from 10:30 AM to 12:30 Eastern with the RadioIO service. The show will be available for free until March of 2011. Additional details will be made available during the course of the week.
While a satellite radio deal is still up in the air, it has been confirmed that the door for negotiations remains open and that the team would love to remain a part of the Sirius XM family. I can only hope they will try to keep the level of negotiations on a higher tier and stop with the canceling and slamming of Sirius XM.
More details to follow.
Position – Long Sirius XM Radio
Whether he burned the bridge with Sirius or not, I have no use for Sirius anymore. I never listened to Howard and the music and comedy channels are boring with the same loops repeating over time. I have more variety in my own library. Sirius is spending way too much on hoping people will buy-in for Martha Stewart (convicted criminal) and Oprah (who has her own OWN network now), etc. So, forget it – I will load up an i-Pod with Bubba from radioio, music and comedy bits from i-Tunes and Sirius can fade away due to their poor management decisions. Buh bye!
come on be sirius bubba has a great show been avid stern fan for year but your doing your fan wrong by not keeping bubba at any price come on talent costs money loyalty is priceless bubba has shown his worth i come stand with sirius doing there talent like this i/m out hoping they see the light
come on be sirius bubba has a great show been avvid stern fan for years but your doing your fans wrong by not keeping bubba at any price come on talent costs money loyalty is priceless bubba has shown his worth i can/t stand with sirius doing there talent like this i/m out hoping they see the light
Anyone know what he wants to get paid to where SiriusXm are offering?
Bubba sucks. This RadioIO thing will fail just like they failed in Miami. His reach is NOT as far as he thinks as was witnessed in the 2010 elections in Florida where “his boy” Charlie Crist was destroyed.
Anybody wanna bet that his subscription rate for RadioIO will be laughable? Seriously, think about it…he had trouble selling out venues that sat 2,500 people for his traveling shows.
I wanna see the numbers after March. LOL.
F Bubba and his Army and the political hack Brent Hatley.
And whatever happened to his so-called TV show in Chicago?
FAIL!
Put Bubba back on !! satellite radio!!
Sapien calls himself a programmer first of all u pay millions to martha who brings zero people to sirius u also pay millions to mm who does nothing 4 his channel then u pay 3 million to maddog when u already have the best guy n ferrall and now u want 2 pay him shit just like u did 2 bubba stop wasting money and pay the right people like bubba and ferrall u dumbass sapien
I just resubscribed after leaving for a short period. The first thing I did was tune to Howard 101 to listen to Bubba. I heard some old recycled Howard garbage. I will disconnect permanently if Bubba is not back by the end of February.
Are you insane? Martha Stewart does nothing for Sirius. Nor does Oprha, Jamie Fox and a number of others. Review the numbers, Bubba was the number two show on Sirius right behind Howard. The others are so far behind you could shut them off and only a few would even know they were gone!