• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Biden only recently said that he was happy to debate Trump, though he was non-committal on the format of such a debate, telling radio host Howard Stern, “I’m happy to debate him.”

    Im surprised Stern is still on the air, even more so that Biden would do an interview with him, and that everyone apparently ignored it even happening?

    It seems like it was mostly about his life and not any pressing issues America is facing, but here’s a link:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz45sMb4js8

    It’s probably the most we’ll hear Biden talk. Even if most of it seems to be random fluff.

    I don’t know why he picked Stern as the venue, but he needs to be doing more of this. Getting out and doing interviews. Just preferably harder hitting questions than:

    Did you ever save someone’s life when you were a lifeguard?

    • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The whole purpose of a Howard Stern interview is random fluff. It’s to make people like Joe Biden seem like he’s “one of us”. It’s not meant to promote a political agenda, or even have serious discussion on any given topic. Howard Stern would have been more likely to ask Biden about details of his and his wife’s sex life back in 1976 or something instead of a question with even mild political relevance. That’s Howard Stern. That’s what he does.

      I don’t know why he picked Stern as the venue, but he needs to be doing more of this. Getting out and doing interviews. Just preferably harder hitting questions than: Did you ever save someone’s life when you were a lifeguard?

      This is a reasonable expectation for if/when he goes on more serious interviews, but this is par for the course for Howard Stern, and he doesn’t even try to pretend otherwise.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I dunno, never listened to Stern.

        But you’re acting like these days he’s Good Morning America.

        Bill Clinton went on MTV and answered live questions then did a sax solo, that reached a shit ton of people in a demographic that gets Dems in office.

        I don’t even know what demographic subscribes to satellite radio these days, let along how many listen to Stern.

        Like I said tho an hour long interview is 100% what Biden should be doing, I’m just not sure why they picked Howard Stern in 2024.

        Maybe because Charlemagne just isn’t an option for Biden anymore?

        He kept asking Biden hard hitting political questions, and we seem to agree that when Biden talks politics it doesn’t go over well with voters.

        • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I don’t even know what demographic subscribes to satellite radio these days, let along how many listen to Stern.

          Regarding how many people still listen to Stern, I obviously don’t know the exact numbers, but given that SiriusXM keeps renewing his contract which hovers around 9 figures annually, I’m going to guess that he still has an extremely large following and is probably one of the only reasons the vast majority of SiriusXM subscribers are even subscribed in the first place.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Oh yeah, he’s always been the main draw there.

            I’m not sure what his contract is like tho, they may have given him a ridiculous long contract to make the jump back in the day. So still paying him 2000s money even without that audience.

            Here’s to hoping this is just the start and Biden starts doing more appearances though.

            He needs to engage with voters if he wants to win. This is a step in the right direction at least.

            • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I’m not sure what his contract is like tho, they may have given him a ridiculous long contract to make the jump back in the day. So still paying him 2000s money even without that audience.

              He just renewed it in I think 2020. And he’s still hovering around 100 million annually.

              And apparently both of us are vastly underestimating SiriusXM’s popularity; a quick google search shows that they pull in about $9 billion a year with a subscriber base of 34 million people. Apparently the pool of people who are too cool for AM/FM but can’t quite get the hang of Spotify is bigger than we may think.

              • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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                6 months ago

                I imagine a big draw is Stern and probably sports radio.

                Sirius XM has a long list of sports-talk and play-by-play stations. And the “listen to sports” and “browses Lemmy” venn diagram is, in fact, two entirely isolated circles.

                I don’t care much for sports but in my market I think all the sports stations are old AM radio. Satellite adds a ton of fidelity and may not have the regional blackouts TV has (that I don’t know about).

              • Pronell@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                $265 each per year. That’s wild.

                My wife got a used car with a Sirius in it. She used it for the free trial but we don’t do talk radio so it seemed completely pointless.

                • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  I used Sirius for a short time right around when Sirius and XM were merging. Never listened to a single talk station. Couldn’t have cared less. I cared about the uncensored, commercial free music with stations tailored to different genres. It was great, and IMO worth the money at the time.

                  Then came streaming. Once streaming came along, Sirius instantly became obsolete. Streaming offered me everything that Sirius had and then some. Since I didn’t need or care about talk radio, there was literally no need to keep my subscription going. I had thought that most others did the same thing. Apparently, I was wrong.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If she shows her feet then Ben Shapiro will likely watch. Maybe he’ll get to hear what real policies are as opposed to “roll back all environmental protections” and “be a dictator for a day”. That could change lives.