Toronto's Globe and Mail reported Thursday that CHUM has decided not to broadcast Stern's new late-night TV program on Toronto's CITY-TV and, effective immediately, the conglomerate will pull Stern's radio show from its Montreal radio station, CHOM FM.
"It's not that we're walking away from controversy, we just want to be sure that the programs we choose meet our codes and Canada's broadcast codes," CHUM programming VP Jay Switzter told the Globe and Mail.
Nevermind that CHUM has a long history of potentially offensive content, starting in the '70s when CITY-TV aired soft-core porn. In fact, CITY-TV even plans to screen Stern's Private Parts in the future.
"We spent two days talking about it, reviewing, discussing pros and cons, and came to the unanimous conclusion that what we saw in the first week would not do," added Switzer.
CHUM did stick by Stern's radio show for nearly a year. (It premiered in Montreal on September 1, 1997.) During that time, the broadcaster faced petitions from offended listeners and a well-publicized chastising from the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which was mad because Stern called French Canadians "scumbags," "peckerheads" and "complete pussies."
CHUM's decision to pull Stern doesn't knock the shock jock out of Canada all together. His show is still carried by Toronto FM station Q-107, where it has an audience of a half million.
As for Howard? He keeps insisting the Candian controversy doesn't faze him. "I don't see how anybody could take anything I say seriously," he explains.