they didn't seem to care for the last 5 years

Exactly. He's been saying much worse for a long time.

This is my main issue, and there has been an almost constant dialogue between the show and the execs down the hall because they listen to the show to hear the boys burying the company.

They knew about this content. They only cared because of media pressure and that is fucking spineless.

Either stand by the content or put the kibosh on it when it started.

It's totally shitty of Sirius to have not stopped it when it started if they were going to act afterwards - I agree.

One thing is that there has been (unsubstantiated) speculation that when Sabean took over he told Ant to cut the racial rants... after Sabean came on they really were few and far between.

SiriusXM waited 4.5 years to tell someone to talk to Anthony about his racism?

Black history month bit was punted this year

I'm not defending them at all - I agree with you that it should have been done sooner if they were going to act on things after the fact. At the time of the eugenics rant I had no idea how he possibly could have done that type of radio and not gotten shit internally for it (I have no idea if he did, but my gut feeling is he didn't) - the second that hit the mainstream it was going to create a monster problem.

What I don't understand is how Ant being racist was like the best kept secret in this media.

O&A have found themselves in trouble even in the last few years, I don't get how none of the nosey journos stumbled onto the finer points of Ant's ignorance.

Basically, he was a fun drunk for years, then last week he drunk drove into a school bus filled with adorable orphans. "I think that guy might have a drinking problem!"

People outside of the show haven't been aware of Ant's racism for the last 5 years. People were made aware of it through it being reported in the news so much and that is what creates the problem.

I think this is entirely possible too, which also doesn't speak positively in any way for Sirius (they had no idea what arguably their second most popular show was broadcasting).

Who knows whether management had any idea whether or not Anthony was racist on air, but I bet they probably did and let him because people didn't care about it. They fired him so quickly over this because they knew this would be a problem if non-fans knew about this, that's what happened so that's what they did.

Well, this time he's calling a woman a nigger publicly on the streets of NYC and then repeating it on twitter rationalizing it by saying "because she is one". Then he made headlines.

Not surprised Sirius doesn't want to associate with him.

Exactly. This can't be explained away as "controversial, exaggerated political discourse" on the radio.

he didn't use the n word anywhere.. please post proof

He said he called her something like a ";/))[|" - there were six characters, and the middle two were the same.

Exactly. I'm sure the Anthony superfans will rationalize that by saying he just edited a curse word and happened to do it with six characters where the 2 middle ones were the same ignoring all the other unedited curse words he used during the tirade.

He apparently posted the same exact six characters as a name he called Bobo at the 2013 July 4 party, from what other people said - and people watching that live said he had used the n-word.

yeah honestly with all the outrage I'm surprised how few people noticed how obvious that was. I think most people think he meant "cunt" or something

Except that he said earlier in one of the tweets (or perhaps the same tweet?) that he had already called her a cunt first, then she called him a white motherfucker, so then he called her a (censored) because "That's what she was". What would it be, if not cunt, which was already said?

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and when you ran it through your Operation Epsilon decoder machine what did it say?

SiriusXM's brand was unfiltered content free from the confines of terrestrial radio. It's perfectly in line with what they stand for.

And half the country is still racist, even more since Obama went into office. Most people don't care about this stuff. The people arguing about this stuff on the Internet don't make a living which is why they have all the time in the world to argue it (like me). The rest of America is working 8 to 5 jobs and just home black home invaders don't ruin their night.

White on black crime is such an epidemic.

I understand crime is down from the ridiculous highs if the 90s. But we still see these racial gaps that cannot be explained by poverty alone.

I live in Southern CA.

Nope. XM was unfiltered content free from the confines of terrestrial radio.

Then Sirius bought them, and Mel Karmazin fucked it all right up the ass.

The whole reason I got XM was no commercials. Fuck you, Mel.

Yeah...BUT WHAT DOES BILL BURR THINK?!! HE'S A FRIEND OF DA DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

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I don't think a portion of people are getting one of the points you made (and you're totally right, obviously) in all the discussions on this: Sirius company officers have a duty to the shareholders to maximize profit (within reason, obviously).

Financially, from the numbers that got publicized a while back here, they make a minimal amount from the O&A channel based off ads (I think the highest rate was $350). There's obviously an audience for the show, but it's not a hugely profit center for the company.

The elephant in the room seemed to be the threat that even one of the car manufacturers that put Sirius in their cars (which is vital to their business) sees Sirius giving a platform to someone with controversial views and decides to pull the radios from their cars. Even one major manufacturer doing so would devastate the company, and the threat of it happening, even if remote, can outweigh the benefits of keeping the show.

Great point re: car manufacturers. Even if not one cancelled, once the media starts latching onto something their uncertainty would skyrocket.

As annoying as it is that we know this would have disappeared by today, they saw the quickest solution as nipping a potential threat in the bud.

Sirius caving in on their own business model to theoretically appease the car manufactures is definitely going to come back and haunt them when those same manufactures start shacking up with Google's and Apple's new streaming services next year.

Hahaha oh boy are they in for some trouble. Their half-assed attempt to be a media company instead of an out-of-date 2004 tech company isn't going so well.

I didn't realize their business model was uncensored Twitter and consequence-free actions for on-air talent.

Well Slugger, I guess now you do.

this is a great post and directly to crux of the entire situation. i see the neanderthals here trying to complain about liberals and marxist agendas for this when in actually no group was. this was always a business decision. they didnt care what O&A did as long as they didnt have a chance to affect the SXM bottom line. this is purely capitalism at it's core.

even just some sports guy or an actor taking a stand and canceling his appearance on sxm because of this shit would start a sterling-like shitstorm, especially with anthony's deft pr skills

Didn't think of that, and you're totally right - it would have caused things to snowball further.

I totally agree with you - one thing I would say is that I think people would argue against the firing no matter who the group attacked was, just based on self-interest (they like a show, it gets cancelled, they want the show back).

Ultimately, though, I have no idea how people thought you could keep your job after saying the things Ant said.

By your standard there are many so called "Racists" on SiriusXM. Start with the obvious Shade45. They use the so called offensive words all the time. What about the uncensored comedy channels on their service that by SiriusXM standards are racist,sexist and homophobic. You can make this argument for other channels as well. SiriusXM's reason for being was to have content that is uncensored,unfiltered and edgy. They do have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders and are doing a disservice by removing content that you would not hear on regular radio. Why pay for a service that has the same bland content as regular radio and their current stock price is reflecting that. I do hope that Opie and Anthony & Lil Yimmy ,unite at some point because they are a great team !

I did not say they did. SiriusXM is not consistant with there fake outtrage.

You really do not want to have a Real conversation or a depate on race. Anthony did ,and lost his job for it. Thats OK. Ant will start his own show and SiriusXM can die in a puddle of AIDS.

There've been a lot of nonsensical posts here the past few days, but this one takes the cake.

It makes perfect sense.

Why dont you take that cake you mentioned and stick it up your ass sideways !

He is saying that everyone gets upset over Anthony's racism but turn on shade 45 or another rap or comic channel and they are calling women bitches and people faggots . why is racism bad but putting down women and gay people not bad? Sorry you don't understand basic English.

He's implying that OP stated some standard for racism (which he didn't). Anthony - or, at minimum, the perception of what Anthony did - implied black people are an inferior race. That goes beyond the choice of words used.

And the officers are doing a disservice to shareholders because you can't hear Ant's racial rants on regular radio?

Yes! The O&A show used those words all the time as well. He didn't get fired because of words, he got fired due to (what looked to outsiders like an obvious case of) overt racism. You know, the type of racist beliefs no person would ever keep a high-profile radio job over if they shouted about it in anger.

Exactly. If Ant had just called the girl who attacked him the n-word, there's still a controversy, but that's defensible - he's pissed off at an individual, and he's looking to hurt that individual in the worst way possible. It's potentially reckless but defensible.

When you (appear to) make sweeping generalizations about the inferiority of an entire race of people is where you get screwed.

Blacks and whites they sometimes mix/ But Black girls only want your money cause they're dumb chicks/ So I'ma say like this/ Don't date a Black girl, take it as a diss/ If you want, but if you don't/ I'ma tell you like this, I surely won't/ Never date a Black girl because Blacks only want your money"

-Eminem "Foolish Pride"

I decided to focus my anger into something positive. Now that Sirius has taken a firm stance on their position on race and hate speech, I am making it my life's work to make sure all the abhorrent filth that still exists on Sirius is eradicated. I am going to take advantage of internet media whores like Gawker and Aleksander Chan to spread my message. Sirius is being politically correct to a fault. I intend on exploiting this fault and Sirius will pay for this hypocrisy. I will not waver until I see the Eminems and Howard Sterns that brand these channels become non-existent.

eminem actually got in trouble for that track, like a decade ago

pay attention to your white history month next year

I think it's less whether or not Ant is racist. That depends on how sensitive your definition is of it.

Which I think is the real issue. Everyone's definitions of things have been set to a black and white hair trigger in the past five years. To some major extent social justice warriors have set the tone of debates and reaction in the media.

I think we need to stop tossing the word "racist" around. It is misused and misplaced.

If Anthony were a racist, he would never tolerate the mere presence of a black person in his studio or in his home.

Instead, what we have is a person who has extremely good relations with respectable, honest, black people. We're talking about the same person who "dedicated" the grill area of his yard to Patrice O'Neal. Why? Because Patrice was a great friend, frequent guest at his parties - and he remembers him fondly.

What Anthony is - though - is a race commentator. And, because of the climate and culture we live in, his talking about crime stats and mentalities in the black community was misconstrued as "racist"- which is pure BS.

What you're seeing is a society where only non-whites can discuss non-white issues. If you're even close to saying anything critical of a community, you're labeled racist. This stifles the critical thinking necessary to fix any problems any community may have.

TL;DR - Anthony is not a racist. He discusses race - and addresses problems in other ethnic communities.

There is definitely truth in what you are saying about who can comment on race and society. However, Ant is absolutely racist. Not the way people 50 years ago were, but racist nonetheless. He was close with Patrice, and other black people, but he hated, fucking HATED, his idea of the average black person. He made his views very clear, especially in the last few years.

I just dont see it that way. It's your take on it, and I respect it. See how easy that is? That's how shit should have been handled. Nobody had forced any of the people who have issue with this to listen to O&A or read his tweets. Ant fucked up and drew attention to it via Twitter. Sirius should have issued a disclaimer, in the end if you don't like it, don't listen. Had they done that, this would have blown over and they wouldnt be looking at their stock dropping and losing thousands of subs and losing revenue.

Yeah man. I am absolutely with you. There are plenty of opinions I disagree with, however, the fact that they are expressed, I have no problem with. If I see something like NAMBLA give an opinion, I don't care. I just ignore it, which apparently most people can't. If Ant was just an angry racist all the time, the show would have canceled itself.

it's just a weird and freaky coincidence he's got his own thread on fucking niggermania

So all blacks share a culture - but they don't belong to the same community? This conversation is ponderous.

The term "racist" denotes that Anthony believe the entire black race is inferior to him. That is just not the case - he has had many, genuine friendships with black people. A real racist would never associate with any black person - just on principle.

Yes - I have heard the show, brah. For 14 years. When Anthony labels himself a racist, he really means he's racial. He will point out flaws in other groups. That should be allowed. It is not hate filled. The media loves to spin "talking about race" as being racist...

He has a valid gripe as far as the excessive violence in black culture, he could say it different, but it's out of control and very few have the balls to speak out about it. I see it all the time where I live. He has never came out and said he hates all black people.

The show has made plenty of racist jokes, all of them have at one time or another, even the guests. None of it has been hate speech.

Some of the Hip Hop music that is played has racist over tones, and also promotes violence. Why is that ok?

No shit. I never said anything about all black music did I? I never said Hip Hop defined a race? A lpt of it does define an element of violence in black culture, most of it bought on by poverty and is not all gang related. I have tons of black music in my collection. Funkadelic, Miles Davis, Bad Brains, James Brown, Public Enemy, Ike & Tina, Kool Keith, The Meters, John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf,The Headhunters, Trouble Funk, Fela Kuti, The JB's, Mingus, Del The Funky Homosapien, etc etc..

Modern R&B can suck a dick! It's fucking awful.

The only point I was trying to make as far as music is concerned is a good amount of Hip Hop lyrics are racist and promote violence, If a company is gonna take a stand on hateful and repulsive content,why does that get a pass? You or anyone else hasn't been able to answer that question? It's either all ok, or none of it's ok despite what color of the person's mouth it's coming out of.

This conversation will go in circles. Agree to disagree.

But how is it is a risk at all? I think by now people know whether they're an Opie and Anthony fan or not. If people don't like something, they just don't listen. Only when bloggers start getting a ton of attention do these execs have a knee jerk reaction to things.

So I ask you, what do you think would lose them more money? The amount of people who would cancel their subscriptions because Ant wasn't fired, or the amount of people who would cancel because he was?

That doesn't really address my point, though. It seems to me that peoples' response to potential blowback is way more extreme than the consequences that would have been suffered in the first place.

Wow, it must suck where you live

Black people marrying outside their race could just mean black people hate black people.

The presence of O&A on SXM has been a money maker, not a detriment! Anthony especially! This was not a fiscal decision.

The free market purchased this product specifically for the content of O&A. 20 years of pushing the edge without a significant liability impact to any parent company really undermines this half assed argument. He was talking on his own time not representing the company. A fact they seemed to overlook for 10 years while they counted revenue.

The consumer has as much voice as the shareholder! Hopefully that point doesn t get lost in all these sandy vaginas!