Shifting Stars

(From Fortune Magazine -- By Marc Gunther)

HOWARD STERN, TED KOPPEL and MAUREEN DOWD have very little in common, but there is this -- whereas once they were available for free, people now will have to pay to hear what they have to say.

Shock jock Stern, whose radio program had been syndicated on over-the-air stations since 1986, has just taken his act to SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO.

Koppel, who spent 42 years at ABC NEWS, will move to cable's DISCOVERY CHANNEL, along with his longtime executive producer at NIGHTLINE and a staff of eight.

Dowd and her fellow NEW YORK TIMES columnists, meanwhile, could be read over the Internet until last fall. Since then, the newspaper's pundits have been available only to those who buy the paper or subscribe to an online product called TIMES SELECT.

Take a closer look at these moves from free media to fee media and you'll see that, while circumstances differ, they reflect some of upheaval roiling the media industry.

Shifting Stars