In 1998, commercial radio hammered into the public's collective conscience the idea that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end as it wore out countless copies of Semisonic's single "Closing Time."

And yesterday brought just that for shock jock Howard Stern: A new beginning into uncensored waters as he made his debut on the Sirius Satellite Network.

I had the misfortune of hearing portions of the debut online and wished I hadn't. Stern is now free to do and say whatever the [expletive] he wants, and while he now has every right to do so without fear of punishment from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) I won't be tuning in any time soon.

Throughout the majority of his 25-year commercial radio career, Stern engaged in battles with the FCC concerning the content and language on his show. Granted, while some of these quarrels were justified, many resulted from poor attempts for the FCC to push its views on decency onto the American public.

For the self-proclaimed "King of All Media," the decision to sign with Sirius seemed to be a no-brainer. But it also seemed as though Stern put the same amount of time into that decision as he did when planning his satellite debut.

To celebrate his freedom from the FCC, Stern chose to have phone sex with Playboy bunny Heidi Cortez at the beginning of his show on Monday. Although men across the country took it as an opportunity to live vicariously through Stern, the segment didn't turn me on to his show.

He also played excerpts of the obscene phone messages left by former television host Pat O'Brien before he entered alcohol rehab. Amusing, at best, for a minute, but ultimately tasteless.

And to top it off, Stern ended his five-hour show yesterday with a discussion of men shaving their genitals. Come on now, what are we, five? Forgive me for saying so, but this conversation could not be any less relevant to my life.

And to show his dedication to the company paying him about $100 million a year, he took time out of his jam-packed show to promote the network. He went as far as to call it, "the future for all broadcasters, Rush Limbaugh included ... this broadcast is history in the making." While I enjoyed the Limbaugh reference, I hope Stern's prognostication is incorrect. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer radio hosts who kiss their employers' asses behind closed doors rather than those who subject me to their brown-nosing antics.

But to his credit, Stern does have his following, and he has done well for Sirius since announcing his decision to sign with the company. While Stern obviously isn't the only draw to satellite radio, Sirius subscriptions did skyrocket from 600,000 when he was signed in October 2004 to 3.3 million when he first took to the airwaves yesterday.

Along with footing the bill for a Sirius receiver, each subscriber pays an additional $12.95 a month to access the service.

Such costs are nothing more than a waste of money now, because there really isn't anything Sirius or its rival XM Satellite Radio can offer that can't be obtained elsewhere. Anyone who wants to hear something other than what Clear Channel is outplaying in every city across the country can hop online and legally or illegally download exactly what they want to hear within minutes. And anyone who wants to hear something along the lines of Stern's early-morning show or Cortez's late-night phone-sex show can certainly find free knockoff versions somewhere on the Web.

As for me, I'm fine listening to my old-fashioned iPod and the 5,000 songs it can hold.