So CBS is suing Howard Stern, his agent, and Sirius Satellite Radio:

NEW YORK, Feb. 28 /PRNewswire/ — CBS Radio today announced that it has filed suit against Howard Stern, his company One Twelve, Inc., his agent Don Buchwald, his agent’s firm Don Buchwald & Associates, Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc.

The lawsuit is for compensatory and punitive damages for multiple breaches of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and misappropriation of CBS Radio’s broadcast time. It further seeks damages from Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. for unfair competition and tortious interference with Stern’s CBS contract.

I haven’t read the 43 page complaint, or obviously, Stern’s contract. But let’s try to dissect this one by one:

The 43-page complaint charges:

* Howard Stern repeatedly and willfully breached his written contract
with CBS Radio over the last 22 months of that contract,
misappropriated millions of dollars worth of CBS Radio airtime for his
own financial benefit, and fraudulently concealed his interest in
hundreds of millions of dollars of Sirius stock while promoting it on
the air.

This is the crux of the complaint, and most of the rest of the bullets deal with this. The idea is that Stern effectively “stole” advertising airtime by discussing Sirius on the air while working for CBS. The argument is silly on several grounds. First, Stern wasn’t allowed to mention Sirius by name while on the air. Second, all of Stern’s announcements regarding his move were made on his personal time. Third, CBS could have, at any time, told Stern that he’s not going on the air any more, that CBS would air best-of shows through the remainder of Stern’s contract. Moreover, they would have had an obligation to do so if they thought that Stern was promoting Sirius and thereby damaging CBS on the air. The law requires one to do what one can to prevent damages to oneself before going to court. Given that they could listen to the show and judge for themselves at the time whether Stern was “stealing” advertising airtime and did nothing about it, they don’t have much ground to stand on now. Stern’s compensation from Sirius is beside the point. It is inconceivable that Stern would have been hired with a substantially different compensation package, one that did not involve payment for subscribers who follow him over. Given all of that, this claim is bogus, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it thrown out pretty quickly.

* To this day, Stern continues to breach his contract by refusing to
return property that belongs to CBS Radio — the recordings of his CBS
radio program that, under his Agreement with CBS Radio, belong to the
company.

This one they might win, though it certainly seems like nothing more than sour grapes.

Stern’s site is down, seems to be overwhelmed at the current time, so I don’t have his official response. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see some sort of counter suit here, just as a tit for tat sort of thing. But maybe not. If I were his attorney, I would request a summary judgement for dismissal.

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