Howard Stern and his raunchy new television show are not welcome on ASN, the station decided Tuesday.

After viewing a tape of the Saturday night debut of the shock jock's TV show, station manager Mike Elgie pulled the plug on the series.

"The content is objectionable," he said Tuesday. "I think it's beneath our standards."

Stern's show was to have aired Saturday on the Halifax-based channel but was pulled at the last minute so station managers could screen it for objectionable material.

The Howard Stern Radio Show aired at 12:35 a.m. on CBS in Boston.

Elgie said they considered moving the show to 2 a.m. but in the end just pulled it off the schedule.

"Certainly there's going to be viewers, even at 2 o'clock, that find it in poor taste. There's really no commercial reason to air it at 2 o'clock if we're going to offend somebody."

Stern's show, primarily comprising videotaped segments from his controversial radio show out of New York, features the crude humor that has made him a popular but controversial star.

Saturday's debut included a raunchy interview with a female bodybuilder and two women kissing and stripping in the radio booth.

The nudity was blacked out when the show aired.

"If Saturday's show is any indication of where he's going with it, it's not even a good show," Elgie said. "But that's not the reason we're pulling it. It's just got a lot of lousy content in it."

ATV/ASN programmer Jane Hefler said the station received no complaints about the removal of the first show, but a few people called to say they hoped it would not be added to the schedule.


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