In the process Stern, and his unique brand of provocative and sexually explicit humour, have attracted millions of new listeners to a medium that threatens to render FM radio obsolete.

Stern, 51, opened his first show with a burst of flatulence and an announcement by George Takei, the Star Trek actor who played Mr Sulu: “This is the maiden voyage of Howard Stern’s satellite radio show. Its five-year mission: to seek out new lesbians with sexy stories.”

In his previous job on earth-bound FM radio, Stern, who once called himself “The King of All Media”, made a sport out of being fined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The shock jock’s new job outside the FCC’s orbit, working for Sirius Satellite Radio, has already earned him an estimated $219 million (£124 million) bonus for attracting more than 2.6 million subscribers.

Stern’s brutal personal honesty on air, and his use of a “crew” of similarly indiscreet sidekicks, was closely mimicked in Britain by Chris Evans.

The furore over Stern’s move to Sirius has prompted countless articles about the death of mainstream media — in particular, advertisement-filled FM radio — which must now compete with subscription-based satellite broadcasts that provide uninterrupted music, sport, news and comedy.

Since his first five-hour weekday show on Monday, Stern has mainly bragged about his success at luring subscribers to the upstart radio service, and bantered with his regular cast members, as well as Takei, a new hiring.

The DJ dedicated a lot of time to discussing the sexual habits of Takei, a Japanese-American, who announced last year that he was gay. The actor declared Stern’s show to be vile, but then paraphrased Voltaire. “I detest what you say, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to say it,” he said.

Stern also joked about having married Beth Ostrosky, his model girlfriend (in fact, he remains a bachelor), and told listeners that the film King Kong was racist because the ape represents “the big black man” who falls for a blonde and is killed as a result.

In a typically bizarre stunt, an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator called in to the show to discuss gay marriage. The most flattering review of Stern’s maiden show probably came from the DJ himself.

“[Monday] was such a great day for me, giddy with the possibilities,” he told listeners. “I thought we did a really good first show.”

To listen to satellite radio, Americans must first buy a receiver, for $49.99 (£28) or more, then sign-up for a plan at $12.95 per month.

Although most satellite radios broadcast their own FM signal — allowing motorists to listen via car stereos without having to hard-wire the devices into their vehicles — the sound quality can be poor. Full installation can run to hundreds of dollars. This prompted CBS Radio, Stern’s former employer, to rebrand itself “Free FM”.

Sirius signed up Stern in October 2004, when it had only 662,000 subscribers. By the end of last year that number had jumped to 3.3 million. Stern is being paid an estimated $80 million a year, which also covers production and other costs.

Legal analysts said yesterday that the FCC had already been given jurisdiction over paid-for programming by the Supreme Court. But for the FCC to begin policing such content it would probably need to get permission from Congress, and a much bigger budget.

Still, Stern could yet be prosecuted on obscenity charges in a conservative state, but these are notoriously hard to prove.

How digital won the war of the airwaves

RADIO companies have rejected satellite radio as an option in Britain and most of Europe because it would be prohibitively expensive.

Satellites are increasingly used in the US to deliver radio, but a network would be more expensive to set up in Europe because national and language boundaries require stations to have a narrower regional “footprint” than in America’s wide-open spaces.

Radio listening in Britain is also more static than in the US, with only 17 per cent taking place inside a car.

Many new British stations have instead been launched through Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), which is distributed via a network of terrestrial transmitters.

The BBC was the first broadcaster in Britain to build a transmission network and started broadcasting DAB in 1995. About 2.5 million homes have digital radio sets, according to the Digital Radio Development Bureau. There are about 38 stations, including specialist rock, speech and comedy stations, but US media groups have yet to buy into digital radio here.

ADAM SHERWIN

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