Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Audio spam on Howard 100

Lest readers think I see no wrong with Howard Stern's channels on SIRIUS, here's one complaint: ease up on the audio spam. It's nice that the commercial breaks are infrequent and short, but if there is any way to filter for deceptive ads, please do it.

This morning I heard these two commercials:

1. Make up to $140,000 selling satellite TV! You can make $75,000 just from the materials we include with your start-up kit;

2. Don't take risks with investing. The smart money is on [online gambling web site]. Go now for a free $1 million dollar tournament.

No disclaimers about "results not typical" for the sat TV sales or any details about the gambling tourney. This is crap you see in unsolicited email and the weekly pennypinching "get rich quick" classified ads you receive in the postal mail. The ad content is probably not within Howard's direct control, but I hope SIRIUS' ad sales department isn't so desperate that it has to accept money from companies making unsupported and deceptive claims.

5 comments:

C-had said...

One of the things that drives me crazy after buying my Sirius subscription is ANY commercial. Even the 30 seconds of banter they allow their DJ's between songs is too much and reminds me too much of old school radio. I really wish they would adopt a complete 100% content based system, if not them, someone...

Anonymous said...

K-dog, did you send this to Sirius website? I sent them a suggestion about parental control button and they answered next day.

Kevin said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Kevin said...

sirius backer: The same day I made this post I sent a similar message to the ad sales department at SIRIUS. No response yet. I would've sent it to Stern's show also, but due to Howardstern.com being "redesigned," contact info for the show wasn't available. My message:

From: Kevin
To: advertising@sirius-radio.com
Date: Feb 15, 2006 2:01 PM
Subject: Please try to police the ads on Howard 100

Hello,

I feel compelled to write because I heard two ads this morning on Howard Stern's show during the 10:00 hour that I feel were deceptive. One made claims about making between $75,000 to $140,000 selling satellite TV and the other was for a gambling web site that offered a free $1 million dollar tournament.

Neither ad offered details or disclaimers about the claims of making easy money. Obviously there are strings attached to both offers and I think listeners deserve to know more before contacting these companies. I hope that future commercials on SIRIUS and Howard 100 will disclose the information listeners need to fairly evaluate what is being offered.

Aaron B. Pryor said...

I'm a Howard listener AND an Air America Radio listener. If you think the commercial spam is bad at H100, you should hear how bad it is at XM and the bleeding heart AAR. All you can do is plug your ears and go "LA LA LA!"