Pay No Attention To The Man Behind Howard Stern

I had an opportunity to be in the studio this week during Howard Stern's maiden broadcast on satellite radio. I rarely listened to his show on K-Rock and certainly won't shell out the cash to hear him now. But watching him at work, I was fascinated by the man as a character study.
Stern was immensely wealthy at his old job and is now being compensated more than half a billion dollars, including stock options, by Sirius satellite for his work. It's a risky venture to be sure, and Sirius may well regret it if more of Stern's airwave audience doesn't switch over to satellite.
You usually have to be a pretty bold and shrewd businessman to come across that kind of money. But Howard Stern is as much a right-place-at-the-right-time personality as there ever was. With a few outlandish pranks and a determination to have no shame, Stern gathered an audience fed up with political correctness and rode it all the way to the top, with only a few small bumps in the road, like getting fired from WNBC in the 80s, which proved to be a blessing. How much more fortunate is the collection of characters with even less talent than his who have hitched their wagons to him and traveled to a succession of better jobs?
Listening to Stern, he is obviously an intelligent man who can have a discussion about current events. In a moment of unscripted candor Monday, he went off on the religious right, decried anti-Semitism and the plight of US soldiers in Iraq and made some very valid points.
But what has made Stern successful is not his insight or even his sense of humor or outlandishness. Having observed him for more than an hour of airtime, I noticed that perhaps 60-70 percent of what he had to say was appearing on a video screen in front of him as someone behind him, whose identity I do not know (is Jackie The Joke Man still with him?) scribbled wisecracks and transmitted them to him. That makes Stern essentially a half-billion dollar puppet.
Why is that different than the late-night comics who read from cue cards or actors who read other people's scripts? I'm not sure, but something definitely is different about it. A radio personality should be precisely that, a personality. Letterman and Leno have gag writers, but it's their ability to banter with the guests and audience that put them on top.
When Stern's show went to a commercial break and he took off his headphones, a change seemed to come over him. He was suddenly more ... normal. He stood up and exchanged pleasantries with reporters in the room, then excused himself to go to the bathroom. The edge was gone. Plenty of stars are completely different off-screen than on. It just strikes me that the kind of succes Stern has enjoyed should have at least something to do with who he is and what's inside of him instead of simply his ability to read off a video screen.