Are Kids Listening? : Youngsters Speak Out About Radio’s King of Raunch: Howard Stern

One of the central issues surrounding the record fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission against radio personality Howard Stern is the agency’s concern that children could be listening to his raunchy, sexually oriented broadcasts.

And Al Westcott, the man whose 19-page complaint triggered combined fines of $705,000 against four stations that carry Stern’s morning show, said that his efforts to demonstrate that the Stern program is offensive were on behalf of “young kids who don’t have a voice.”

The truth is that no one knows for sure how many children are exposed to the show, which is heard on 10 stations across the country, including KLSX-FM (97.1) in Los Angeles. The Arbitron ratings service does not include anyone under 12 in its audience measurement surveys.

But clearly there are some. During the most recent Arbitron ratings period, 4,800 12- to 17-year-olds in the Los Angeles area alone were tuned in to Stern during any given 15-minute period.

The Times talked with five young people locally who regularly listen to Stern--and they insisted that they do not need or want such protection from the comedic commentary that the FCC has deemed indecent. Four described themselves as fans; the fifth, a girl, said that she disliked the program and the effect it had on her male classmates.

“I’ve pretty much heard everything before at school--not in the classrooms, but in the playground, along with my friends,” said 12-year-old Michael Goldman, a seventh-grader at Montclair Preparatory in Van Nuys. “All the kids at my school and other schools look up to him. I like him a lot. I try to listen as much as I can.”

“Some people say he’s kind of perverted but I don’t think so because you hear the same kind of stuff at school,” said 13-year-old Laura Power, also a seventh-grader at Montclair.

“The Howard Stern that I listen to and admire is a 14-year-old at heart and I think that very much attracts (young) people to him,” said 14-year-old Ari Moss, a ninth-grader at the gifted magnet program at Sepulveda Middle School. “I find boys my age tend to worship Howard Stern.”

Whether children are listening is at the core of the debate over whether Stern’s high-rated show is appropriate for morning drive-time.

Stern and officials at Infinity Broadcasting Corp., the company that syndicates his New York-based show and was hit with a $600,000 fine by the FCC Friday, have maintained for years that children do not listen to the program unsupervised.

Infinity attorney Steven Lerman said the company commissioned a Gallup study several years ago that surveyed 252 households. Of 369 kids under 12 in them, only one listened to Stern--and that child listened with his parents, he said. Infinity officials concluded in a filing with the FCC that there were no unsupervised children under 12 in Stern’s audience.

“Among older teens--in the 15-17 range--there are a lot of listeners,” Lerman said in an interview. “But in younger teens--13, 14--it’s a pretty small percentage. Overall, teens represent 3% of his audience.”

The American Civil Liberties Union also maintains there is no proof that unsupervised children are listening, and says that if they do, much of the material goes over their heads.

“No empirical data show children listen to the Howard Stern show, and the pertinent psychological research demonstrates that children would not understand most of the allegedly indecent material broadcast on the show and that the scant matter of that nature that they might understand--the ‘bathroom’ or ‘scatological’ humor in which Stern occasionally engages--would not harm them because it is similar to the jokes they hear and tell on the playground,” the ACLU said in a filing with the regulatory agency last week.

The FCC and Westcott contend otherwise.

“For them to suggest that out of millions of listeners out there, there are no children is nonsense,” Westcott said, citing a tape he made of a 13-year-old boy from Philadelphia who recently called Stern’s show, telling Stern he was a big fan.

“Our position has always been that the courts have acknowledged the commission’s right to assume the presence of children if the time of day is appropriate,” said Bob Ratcliffe, assistant chief of law in the FCC’s mass media bureau. “That has been the fight: When is the time of day?”

The time of day deemed appropriate for children to be tuned in is known in broadcasting circles as the “safe harbor” period. Currently, that period when the FCC says children can be assumed to be in the audience covers 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Children officially are defined as those under 12, but Ratcliffe said that the current commission has argued that it also should seek to protect those up to 17 as well.

Some of the young Los Angeles listeners interviewed by The Times said they listen with their parents or with adults driving them to school in car pools.

“My parents started me listening,” said Ari Moss, who lives in Encino. “My parents and I thought it was the funniest thing. In fact, dinner conversations revolve around Howard Stern.”

Nachum Inlander, whose 14-year-old son Daniel listens faithfully to Stern, said he’s not happy about the situation but allows the boy the freedom to choose.

“Listen, we can tell him our feelings, but we feel like he has the right at this age and stage of life to listen,” said the elder Inlander.

“It’s not like we love that he’s listening to it, but it’s livable. There’s a lot worse things that can happen. Maybe in another year he’s going to get tired of it, but it’ll be his conclusion. If he would take drugs, I wouldn’t give him this choice. But at a certain age they need certain freedoms. I’m sure he’s not the only one. That’s what’s scary.”

Most of the kids interviewed said they did not feel they were unduly affected by the program, which critics have called sexist, racist and dirty.

“I try my hardest not to let him influence me, though I guess in some ways he might,” said Daniel Inlander, who is a student at Cleveland Magnet School in Reseda. “I don’t have an interest in going to a strip bar. I just think it’s funny what he does. . . . I’m Jewish and he talks a lot about Jews and not always the greatest things. But I don’t take it personally.”

“I don’t think he should treat women the way he does because they’re humans,” Goldman said.

“They’re people just like him. He should treat them the way he wants to be treated back. . . . I try to overlook that (aspect) as much as possible. I just like him because he’s funny. He sometimes can be cruel, but other than that he’s a great person.”

Moss, who listens daily with his parents, said, “Sometimes when it gets a little oversexed my parents will switch to NPR, but that’s maybe once or twice a month. . . . I personally believe it’s just an act. I don’t think he can have a wife and two kids and still be married and monogamous if he blasts women like that in his private life. . . . People listen to him because he’s outrageous. He says what people are afraid to say. But I’m not going to expect women to do Butt Bongo (a Stern feature that involves spanking women) for me--though I wouldn’t mind. I know when girls on the show do that they just want the publicity. I separate that because I know what’s reality and what’s entertainment.”

But one girl said she was unhappy with the way she and her friends were treated by their male classmates who listen to Stern.

“I find boys my age tend to worship Howard Stern and girls my age tend to despise him,” said 14-year-old Wendy McCarthy, a ninth-grade student in the gifted program at Sepulveda Middle School. “I don’t like what he does with girls. I think he’s sexist. I think it has a negative effect on the guys I know. . . . They act more powerful and they look at girls differently. They just, like, tear us apart. When a girl walks by they’ll say things like, ‘Look, she’s got ugly legs.’ (Stern) may not cause it, but I know he doesn’t help it at all. I haven’t heard of any good effect it had on anybody.”