Sirius has more than 120 channels and about 2 million subscribers. Besides Howard Stern, standouts include "E Street Radio," featuring Bruce Springsteen's music, and "Shade 45," a hip-hop channel created by Eminem. Another big name is "Martha Stewart Living Radio." Sports highlights include NFL games. The monthly subscription cost is $12.95. To learn more, go to www.Sirius.com .

XM has some 160 channels and roughly 5 million subscribers. It boasts "The Bob Edwards Show," starring the former National Public Radio favorite. Its big names include shock jocks Opie and Anthony, Snoop Dogg and Tom Petty, whose favorite records are featured on "Tom Petty's Buried Treasures." News junkies can tune in to MSNBC. Sports highlights include Major League Baseball. It's $12.95 a month, too.

"I never went to more potluck dinners than I did in Detroit, and I mean it in a good way," says the nation's preeminent shock jock, reminiscing about the period in 1980 when he lived here and worked for 106.7, known then as WWWW-FM.

Nice? Stern, who's taken his shots at the Motor City, must be toying with us. Last Sunday, a clip on "60 Minutes" showed him joking about getting a Rosa Parks tattoo to curry Ed Bradley's favor. Now he's talking potlucks?

Actually, the voice at the other end of the phone in Manhattan is the real deal, the same Stern who, at 51, is still asking women to take their shirts off, who keeps a Robo-Spanker in his studio for use on strippers and porn stars, and who treats flatulence as one of the more reliable weapons in his comedy arsenal.

It's also the Stern who's in the thick of a media charm blitz to promote his move to Sirius satellite radio on Jan. 9. He only has five more days to go on his syndicated radio program, which airs in Detroit on WKRK-FM (97.1).

The self-described King of All Media is jazzed to talk about his move to satellite radio. His desire to promote the relatively new medium is so great, he's agreed to do the kinds of interviews he normally avoids.

But it's a chance to experience Stern's engaging, frank, whip-smart side, too -- qualities his fans insist are as much a part of his radio format as the sex talk, the racial humor and the crudeness.

Stern believes change is good. He goes to a psychiatrist four times a week in a quest to open up more as a person, and he says he changes every day.

The change he's facing now -- the official start of his reported five-year, $500-million deal with Sirius -- is crucial to him and the future of satellite radio. If his presence on Sirius draws in enough of his current 12 million listeners, it could become a defining moment for broadcasting -- an event that marks the beginning of the end of the dominance of terrestrial radio, the fancy term used for free AM/FM radio.

Although he's often expressed concerns about whether his audience will follow him, he sounds confident at the moment. Sirius had about 600,000 subscribers when he announced his deal in October 2004 and it's grown to an estimated 2 million.

"It says to me, wow, my fans are great, they're coming with me," Stern says. "But also there's a tremendous pressure in all of this. Everybody wants to see instant gratification. It doesn't work that way. I think satellite's a growing industry. I'm going to do everything to get everyone to try it at least once, because I think if they try it, they would never go back."

"Let's say you go buy a new car, maybe it'll happen this year, maybe it'll happen next year, and you walk in and you go, 'Hey, wouldn't it be fun to have satellite.'...When you get that car might be when you actually sign up because it's easy and convenient. So this process, we're going to see it continue and we're going to see it grow. And yes, the car industry is everything to satellite radio, and, by the way, the manufacturing companies are embracing it."

what HBO and other cable channels have done to network TV -- eat away at its audience and become a strong creative force -- it would be a sweet outcome for Stern, who says he's making this move because he's lost his creative freedom as a broadcaster.

Censorship has been a longtime Stern complaint, but the issue came into sharp focus after the Janet Jackson breast-baring incident at the 2004 Super Bowl and the indecency debate turned sharply political.

In his view, Stern has borne the brunt of a crackdown that's puritanical and hypocritical. The Federal Communications Commission has targeted him unfairly, his argument goes, even as it has allowed media stars like Oprah Winfrey to deal with explicit topics without repercussions.

"I'm telling you the truth when I tell you I can't play bits I did a year ago on my show," he gripes, describing how a listener recently wanted to hear an old bit about Mr. Ed and Jessica Hahn, the woman whose affair with televangelist Jim Bakker made headlines in the '80s. "When I played it for him, it had to go through the censors first and they chopped out half the bit."

Stern is on a rant, a zone of outrage where he's often at his most interesting. "As someone who makes people laugh for a living, I am so edited and chopped down, it's a miracle I have three listeners left, because it's not who I am," he complains.

The FCC doesn't regulate satellite radio's content, which is why Sirius seems like paradise to Stern. He laughs off the idea that an absence of censorship could make him lose his edge. He's not buying the theory that he needs to walk a creative tightrope to thrive.

"First of all, my audience doesn't want to hear me whining about the FCC. That's not why they're listening. ... I want to have fun. I can't do my job, because my job as defined by me is let's have a party, let's get into every aspect of life. Human sexuality. Bowel movements. If that's funny to me, I want to talk about it. I want to explore why people do gross things. I want to go everywhere I can, and I have had so much taken away from me that I can honestly tell you I'm doing 30% of my material now, on regular broadcast radio. ... There's no way that I will ever accept the premise that I need the FCC to regulate me in terms of making me interesting. It's just not true."

So with complete freedom on Jan. 9 will come ... what, exactly? Complete anarchy? Or complete filth, as his harshest critics would argue? Stern says those predictions won't happen, even as he genially talks about new ideas like "Crack Whore View," a takeoff on ABC's "The View" that will feature prostitutes.

"Before all this FCC nonsense, I always drew my own boundaries. I don't want to see anybody hurt. I want it to be funny. ... You edit yourself. I remember, after I was divorced, I didn't want to talk about certain aspects of my divorce in order to protect my kids and protect my ex-wife ... I laugh at people who say to me, 'Well, gee, there's going to be no limits and now all you're going to do is get on the air and say the (bleep) word and have women having sex in the studio. No one's going to pay to listen to that. That's just not entertainment."

to do with what he will. So far, that's translating into, among other things, a Howard 100 news team that will be "all Howard, all the time." He told Newsweek he's bringing back bits like "The Bathroom Olympics," which involves a race to a bodily function that's pretty easy to guess.

"I was listening to a tape of hers the other day. I said, 'I've got to give Debbie some airtime on the channel.' I'm going to do something with Debbie. I like Debbie. She's very polarizing, which, hey, I can relate to."

That's always been Stern's defense, that he's a divisive figure only because the public isn't used to honesty from the media. He insists he's never understood the shock jock label, since there's nothing about his content that shocks him.

His interpretation is worth considering, to a point. Although parts of his show are juvenile and extremely raunchy, segments like his celebrity interviews are sharp, informed and much franker than the publicity-oozing sitdowns the stars do for Barbara Walters and Katie Couric.

Stern says it was a segment with a prostitute that he did while he was in Detroit that coaxed his longtime sidekick Robin Quivers to join forces with him.

"Robin said that convinced her to come work with me. She said, 'You weren't making a value judgment about the prostitute. You were exploring her life. You got into every nitty-gritty detail and it was fascinating. I'd never heard an interview like that.' That's what attracted her to me, and that's what's attractive about a censorship-free environment."

and gave him an epiphany as a performer. He walked into a bad situation at an underdog station in the rock market and left when WWWW-FM went country with a promise to himself.

"I blamed myself for the station not succeeding, and I said that will never happen again. Wherever I go, it doesn't matter what the rest of the station is doing. I will be a strong enough performer that I will carry these radio stations on my back."

Stern realizes millions of people don't like what he does and don't necessarily want him to succeed. But he's doing this for himself and for the fans who do care.

"What's important is the millions and millions of fans who do listen to me. Those are my people. They're of similar mind-set. And those are the people I want to satisfy now with my move to satellite."

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