For Immediate Release: Updated

Thursday February 11, 2010

In the year leading up to Howard Stern's move to Sirius Satellite Radio five years ago, Bridge Ratings paid particular attention to subscription trends for satellite radio and tracked interest from Howard's terrestrial listeners.

When all was said and done, Howard was able to attract just over a million new subscribers to Sirius. While interest in Howard among his listeners remains high, in the five years since he joined subscription radio, Bridge Ratings "Howard Stern Interest Index" among non-satellite subscribers has waned.

Bridge Ratings has continued to study Howard's audience as part of its on-going satellite radio studies, and as news of Stern's contract negotiations with Sirius threads its way into industry and mass market news coverage, the relative quiet status of non-Stern fans is reversing itself.

"Interest among satellite radio subscribers in anything Howard Stern does has continued to be strong, "explains Bridge Ratings President Dave Van Dyke, "but as you would expect, once off terrestrial radio, non-subscribers - over time - lost interest. However, in the last few months of 2009 through today, his contract negotiation publicity has reawakened non-subscribers to his satellite show. In fact, since we interview on a weekly basis, we saw significant interest increase around the "American Idol" news in recent weeks."

This graph trends interest in Howard Stern since his departure from terrestrial radio.

Bridge Ratings continues to monitor the progress of Stern listeners and will provide weekly trending and quarterly updates through 2005.

*Weekly sample = 1200 satellite subscribers (+/- 2.9%) | 1520 non-subscribers (+/- 2.6%) 18+