Hundreds of Howard Stern fans turned out for a rally organized to show support for the radio talk show host, hoisting signs that read “F the FCC,” and shouting slogans such as, “Free speech is not indecent!” to the honking of horns from heavy traffic at corner of Wilshire and Veterans.
The rally was held the day after the Federal Communications Commission cited Stern for indecency for the first time in a decade, though it was planned a little over a week ago.
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| 97.1's Big Mike taped his mouth shut as a symbolic gesture of support for Stern. |
The four-hour long rally outside the Federal Building had a little over 300 participants at any given time, with a steady flow of people coming to and from the rally. Event organizers claimed that all together at least 5,000 people turned out, though federal police suggested that the 300 present were the sum of the turnout.
Protest organizers and police officials traditionally offer disparate figures when estimating turnout for any type of protest.
Jack Silver, program director for 97.1FM, the talk radio station that carries the Howard Stern Radio Show in Los Angeles, said the station organized the event at the bequest of the show’s listeners.
“It’s a grassroots rally put together by the listeners, the listeners of Howard Stern called our station, emailed our station, and faxed our station asking how they could get involved,” Silver told AVN.com. “So we held the rally to support First Amendment rights for Howard Stern and all broadcasters and to really encourage Senators to vote no on Senate bill 2056.”
Senate bill 2056 is the Senate’s version of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which seeks to increase penalties for violations of the FCC’s indecency standards. The House of Representatives has already passed a version of the bill, seeking to increase fines from $27,500 per utterance of indecency to $500,000.
“As you can tell by the support of the fans out here, everybody is pretty much in favor of Howard Stern,” Silver said. “The 18 million people that listen to Howard every week across the country need their voice heard, not just a few religious people.
“If you’re offended by Howard Stern then you must turn the radio off. We support that. I’m offended by National Public Radio - I’m offended because it’s boring.”
97.1FM had promoted the rally heavily during Stern's show this week, but Stern said this morning that he was unaware that a rally was being held, though he noted it was good timing since the FCC had cited his show just last last night for show broadcast in 2001.
