His contract with Sirius XM ended as the New Year was rung in and Bubba the Love Sponge had used Twitter to tell fans that he did not come to terms on a renewal. In fact, he urged them to cancel their satellite radio subscriptions. Now he’s confirmed that a new Bubba show will debut on the Internet.
“I have a product. My product is worth X amount of dollars. They were trying to pay me far less,” Bubba said of his break with Sirius XM in an interview with WTSP-TV (CBS) Tampa-St. Pete.
Bubba continues to host a daily show on six FM stations, originating from Cox Media’s WHPT-FM Tampa-St. Pete, so he has another source of income while trying to build up the new Internet venture (part free and ad-supported and part subscription) on Radioio.com. The site now has links to listen to Bubba’s live show each morning, with two daily reruns. Bubba and four of his sidekicks have also selected the music to run on their individual “Bubba Army Music Channels.”
“It’s not real sexy and real popular right now, but I think it’ll reap big benefits in a couple of years, and I’m a patient man,” Bubba said of Internet radio.
In another interview with The Hollywood Reporter Bubba lashed out at Sirius XM for paying big bucks to Hollywood stars who, in his view, don’t know how to do good radio, while demanding deep salary cuts from the radio pros. He said the company offered only $200,000 per year, down 80% from his previous $1 million per year.
Bubba told the TV station, however, that he regrets leaving Sirius XM only because he’s no longer be working with his friend Howard Stern. Bubba’s uncensored satellite show had aired on the Howard 101 channel for the past five years, while Stern himself was the headliner on Howard 100. Stern, however, negotiated a new contract with Sirius XM, while
Click here to read The Hollywood Reporter story.
Click here to view the WTSP interview.
RBR-TVBR observation: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – content is king. Listeners/viewers will go to whatever platform they have to in order to find the content that grabs them. Finding the right business model is always a challenge for a new platform, but Bubba is an established star who will figure out what works for him. Necessity, after all, is the mother of invention.
