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ONA off air
- Thread starter Niki
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Norton panicked, opie fucked, and Anthony drank.
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I'll give Anthony credit here: when Tim Sabean got involved with the show, he tried to politic to get O&A moved to later in the day, and on the air Anthony said "not gonna happen, my contract says 6-10, and I don't want it otherwise". His commute to and from work would've been fucked if they started later.
I know during their time off, Opie actually traveled a lot. This might've been he either went to Greece or Turks and Caicos.
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Opie traveled to almost every state in the USA. Anthony stayed home and played with toy planes, computer games, and other manchild activities.
O&A took the morning spot on XM because that company had higher ups that were fans and wanted them to compete with Howard. And it was the next step in their careers as morning time was prime time for radio. Anthony bitches about it because he's a little faggot who didn't even attend meetings and allowed Opie to make the deal. Opie knew what was best for the brand.
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After the "Sex for Sam" incident, their radio show was canceled but they were still on the payroll. This is standard operating procedure, IIRC, Tucker Carlson is currently dealing with the same thing.
Back in Ye Olden Days, people actually listened to the radio live, and it's safe to assume that XM put them on mornings so that they could compete head-to-head with Howard Stern.
"According to Opie and Anthony, stars of their own show on XM Satellite
Radio, it's Howard Stern who had better watch his ass this time around. The
launch of The Howard Stern Show on Jan. 9 on competing provider Sirius
Satellite Radio set up high stakes-half a billion dollars high-and the
weight of the world will sit on Stern's shoulders. Not so for Gregg "Opie"
Hughes and Anthony Cumia (O&A), who were the first to make the move from
advertiser-supported terrestrial radio to the subscriber-funded world of
satellite broadcasting, in October 2004.
"It's old hat for us already," says Anthony. "[Howard's] got a lot to
prove."
Opie and Anthony don't really see a fight on their hands. In the past,
Infinity Broadcasting, the management company of their non-satellite radio
show, barred the two from engaging in any verbal jousting with or about
Stern. But if a battle breaks out this time around, it will be an
old-fashioned radio feud that will resemble a mid-1970s hockey brawl.
Although Stern will broadcast on Sirius, the two radio shows have an
ugly backroom history. Stern has always accused the duo of being "clones,"
for ripping off his entire act, and that includes hosting strippers,
lesbians and any other debauchery. But Opie and Anthony, who grew up in
Centerport and Huntington, respectively, are not so upset with those
accusations; they're upset because, they claim, Stern used all of his muscle
to make the two shut up about him and his show. The duo was off the air for
nearly two and a half years after being suspended for on-air high jinks, and
then they moved to XM. They were also ordered to not talk about Stern-or
else-while working for Infinity. Now, there is no fear of reprisal.
When you turn on The Opie and Anthony Show, it's like hanging around a
bar or your friend's house, having a few beers and just saying what comes to
mind, uncensored. It is a format that was innovated by Stern, and Opie and
Anthony certainly acknowledge their roles as devotees. "Everyone listened to
Stern back then," says Anthony.
But that was a long time ago.
"I was a big fan in the glory days, the late '80s and early '90s,"
says Anthony as Opie agrees. "The days of Jackie 'The Joke Man' Martling,
Sam Kinison and Billy West. Before Hollywood Howie."
A huge shift in Stern's show-and his personal life-has taken place
over the last six years. First, Stern, who touted himself as the model
husband, and his longtime wife, Allison, divorced. Stern became single,
dating celebrities and appearing in the gossip pages. For almost five years,
though, he has had a steady relationship with model Beth Ostrosky. (Recent
rumors of their marriage were put to rest on Jan. 9 when Stern announced
they did not become Mr. and Mrs. Stern.)
He also lost Martling to a contract dispute and "Stuttering" John
Melendez to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. But Stern's show took on new
people and continued to dominate morning drive time.
The many years on top, says Anthony, have bred complacency in Stern.
"I think Howard feels like he doesn't need to put on a quality show
anymore," he opines.
When O&A finally inked a multiyear deal with XM, there were fewer than
a million subscribers to the XM service. Their biggest problem, says Opie,
was that The O&A Show was on a premium channel, like the HBO premium
television channel, and billed as a separate cost for each subscriber. The
early days on XM were a bit discouraging.
"We went from having a show that was syndicated in 17 major markets to
having a few thousand listeners. But we believed in the show," says Opie.
Today, XM outnumbers Sirius in subscriptions by almost 2-to-1. In
January, XM reached its goal of six million customers. The O&A Show has long
since been wrapped into XM's basic monthly fee. Stern's program is also part
of the flat-fee service. The big difference between the two shows and the
providers is that O&A are part of a larger picture.
O&A do their show every day from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. "
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Nobody mentioned Cumio also had a heart attack in 2002. I think Opies father died in 2004 too.
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O&A always did afternoons as radio had zero shock jock shows outside of them and Stern that were successful nationally. So Stern got mornings and they got afternoons in the big markets. The big radio companies didn't want the shows competing because they all owned pieces of Stern and O&A. Stern was also terrified of O&A taking him on head to head and repeatedly went after O&A behind the scenes. To the point where when O&A were fired it was deemed better to just pay them for two years straight not to work rather than have them take Stern's audience in the mornings which would have happened if they had gotten a deal in the weeks after the Sex for Sam 3 firing. When O&A were fired they were the top show in probably close to thirty major markets in their timeslot.
Once XM hired them they went to mornings and basically grew their audience every year until they were syndicated on FM and with XM. XM forced them into the premium tier channel when they started, so you had to pay extra to get them, but they were basically the number one show on XM within a week of broadcasting and became the faces of the company. While Howard began slowly dying by doing three or four days a week on Sirius and having his audience dwindle (and now vanish entirely) despite being promoted massively by Sirius. When they Sirius and XM merged the XM staff were fired so Howard's crew ran the promotions and put him in all of the advertisements and not O&A despite him having probably less than one-third of O&A's audience at that point.
Working mornings in radio meant waking up at 4AM. Commuting to work to arrive by 5AM or 5:30AM. Then starting the show as close to 6AM as possible. Five days a week. There was no time to party or go to sports events or have a nightlife. By the end of O&A's last contract they had pushed the show's start to 6:30AM and were looking for a three or four day a week show or even later start time before Anthony got fired. Jackie and Billy both said that the 6AM start time for Stern was the primary reason they quit and not even money.
First two years of O&A on XM were wild. First month had Norton reveal Monster Rain to everyone and his molested past. Then the woman who came in and had poker chips flung at her happened. First eggnog contest (baby bird one would be later). Ed Asner nicknames Opie 'the destroyer' while they are in Vegas. Rogan also reveals in the Vegas show that he likes imagining his ex-girlfriends taking 'big black dicks'. Assault on the Media starts and is quickly banned by management. This lead to the Jim Phillips versus the Pests battle. Patrice tells everyone he was in jail once for rape. Superball where a guy dropped a jar of bees in the studio forcing the show to end prematurely as everyone fled. Fatty Pig Fatty contest which ended with Anthony meekly telling Shawnee Smith the name of the contest. Bill Burr trashing the fans at a Virus Show. Sean Rouse fight with Opie and Norton causing a huge fallout that arguably lasted until the DL Hughley incident.
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"Anthony.... What's the name of the contest?"
Anthony would always puss out when Opie was doing the bit. He had to start hiding behind characters like mr imus.
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Was Sirius / XM reporting ratings at that time? I've only ever seen people talk about how well O&A were doing and how poorly Stern was doing but I don't think I've ever seen any actual ratings data. I don't even know if Sirius reports ratings now, as far as I know they only report subscriptions.
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No one has ever seen any ratings data. Closest I’ve seen is an advertiser sheet with rates for each program. Stern was obviously the highest.
After the merger, Norton summarized it pretty well. XM started out with a huge lead as far as subscribers and units in cars thanks to the GM partnership. He blamed mismanagement (which is partly true), but the reality is once Howard came to Sirius, they surpassed XM. They were both in trouble, so they did a “merger” but Sirius was in the drivers seat so most of XM was essentially dead weight.
(Please understand I never looked into this at all, just what I remember the fruit saying)
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on their very first xm show, opie jokingly said they went from having an audience in the millions to one the size of the population of des moines, iowa. even though he was being facetious, it was likely fairly accurate. I've heard they generally only averaged round 77k - 100k listeners per episode on satellite radio, which is pretty wild when you consider they had about 10 million listeners an episode when they were on wnew
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Anthony gave himself a cocaine induced heart attack and they didn't talk for two years. They weren't that close.
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i've heard it was only 30k listeners when they were on premium only channel high voltage. i'm sure they grew after that but e-lo and tim sabean and other management would always lie to them and say their numbers were way higher.
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The fm/xm days were some of the best. I still don't really remember how they got to do both back to back? Or if I'm even remembering that correctly???
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Obviously with 'hollywood accounting' these entertainment companies are laundering money and lying and so on. But satellite radio was even more deceptive and ridiculous in that their subscriber 'counts' would include people who got a free radio with a new car purchase. And they were trying to count subs for installed radios at one point that were not even activated. They also would use 'Howie math' as well and try to count one active sub as like 3-4 listeners because people drive with their families or carpool all of the time. So you never know how many people could be listening. Like a radio installed in a grocery store or retail store could have 500 people listening at once.
This same thing would happen with AM/FM ratings as well. And happens now with streaming sites. Like if you watch the first five minutes of any program on Amazon or Netflix you get counted as a viewer. If you watch the first quarter of the Super Bowl you get counted as if you watched the entire thing. If you get a free sub to some streaming service for some promotion you get counted as a subscriber technically. Just like Disney+ and Paramount+ and so on are losing billions of dollars every year. I would guess that Sirius and XM have never turned an actual profit.
But one thing we know is that whenever O&A would talk about anything it would become number one topic on google search, twitter, and other social media. They were clearly driving content and discussions online more than any other program. You look up other radio stations and shows from that time and almost every link ends up being Jocktober or some O&A link. And the pests were so much larger than other shows that they could completely swamp them like when the fans took over Scott Farrel's show on Howard's channel.
I highly doubt that Stern ever beat O&A on satellite radio outside of his first year or two on Sirius. His audience is entirely gone now as well. Because of how infrequently he broadcasted his show he never had a consistent audience. The days he ran best of shows probably no one was listening so his ratings would be in the toilet those days.
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The fuck was Nana doing that required him to be beat traffic? Lots of Brothermen would love to visit Jew York City, Child
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I like how all of Anthony’s quotes are the most base-level unresearched talking points, whereas the one time they quote Opie, he’s bringing in hard numbers. It’s really obvious who was attending meetings and who was buying into his own fake hype.
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I mean take the source with a grain of salt because it was Danny but didn't that unemployable loser say he saw some confidential paper in a copier at work that said at most OnA had 100k listeners on SXM?