Getting to the root of raunch

MANY try to imitate Howard Stern, invariably without success (“King Stern’s Legacy: He Launched the Raunch,” by Brian Lowry, Jan. 1). Few understand the true reason for his popularity.

It’s not the raunchiness, vulgarity or mean-spiritedness. When I tune in, I hear real people speaking the way we do while among friends.

To put that on the radio was a stroke of genius, in an industry defined by phoniness. Holden Caulfield would have been a loyal listener.

Tony Elka

Studio City

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ONE must agree -- irrespective of how distasteful the acceptance -- that Brian Lowry is absolutely correct that Howard Stern “launched the raunch.”

However, Lowry is far too limited in the scope of his dubious credit because, like the newspaper he writes for, it takes an institution to sanction and provide exposure for the tastes of its contributors.

In the case of Stern, we can readily assign primary responsibility to media mogul Mel Karmazin, who has sponsored and backed Stern’s every move into the depths of tasteless depravity since his earliest New York radio days.

The fact that Karmazin is now the president of Viacom Inc., whose holdings include CBS and Infinity Broadcasting, has not diminished his support for the tastes of Howard Stern.

I do not believe the responsibility of the supporting institution can be overstated. Stern may originate his tasteless ideas but it is the various venues of Viacom that give voice to his social depravity.

Adolf Eichmann may have been the inventor of the “final solution,” but it took the support of the Nazi Party to put his ideas into practice.

Daniel Eliason

Santa Barbara