Because I don't think even Playboy or Raw Dog come close to the Stern show in terms of vulgarness. Last time I checked, neither of those two stations play clips from porno movies or feature girls riding the Sybian. My guess is that's what Apple has a problem with, and Apple can go f themselves if that's why there's no Howard.
Actually the Playboy show can get pretty vulgar - Playboy won't let them do on-air penetration, but they do have shows where tehy talk pretty vulgar.
This is not about adult content as the Playboy show is sexual in nature - its Playboy! It's almost certain to be a rights issue and I wonder how much Howard himself is aware of it.
The answer is very simple, and has been pointed out numerous times. Sirius/XM does not have the LEGAL right to offer these channels under the terms of their contracts with Howard or the NFL or MLB. Music/performance rights, like most copyright use agreements, are highly specific on the MEDIUM through which you may use the rights you are licensing. It appears that when Sirius signed up Howard, Howard did not authorize Sirius to provide his content on mobile phones. The Starplayr and Pocket Radio examples are different as both were essentially simple extensions of the web streaming by THIRD parties. NOT BY SIRIUS.
So get a grip. If you want Howard on the iPhone app, push Howard to license those performance rights to Sirius. You'll never get MLB or NFL to license live play-by-play as both will have their own apps to do so (MLB already does)
I think this is it. Broadcasting and media rights are a
very complex issue. I think we can boil it down to these reasons:
1) The StarPlayer Application was a third party extension of the website - it was using that basis to get the audio stream and it was being done by a third party. Howard is on the web and the audio was sourced there. Obviously Sirius and XM complained and the app went bye bye. I think Stern knew this and was OK with that being that Sirus has no control - his contract had web availability enabled.
2) Playboy is an outside network and obviously was able to negotiate broader terms of availability - probably because they would not get in on their own.
3) RawDog and other adult channels are (I believe) controlled directly by Sirus and thus are available.
4) Stern (along with the sports networks) negotiated his contract very delicately to cover the broadcast and online spectrum. My guess is that Sterns ownership of the program rights (similar to NFL and MLB) is what is problematic here - Sirius would have to renegotiate these things because of how their broadcasting contracts work in relation to the program ownership.
Unless these contracts are revealed to us (and they typically are not) we won't know for sure. I remain 99.9% sure that this is what is going on and Stern was not fully aware about how the program was to work thinking it was the same exact way as the StarPlayer program did things. I think it boils down to the fact that Sirius has a greater obligation to control the streams over a third party.