More than a year after announcing it, today was the day Howard Stern debuted his show on Sirius Satellite Radio.

I don’t subscribe to Sirius (nor to XM, for that matter), so I had to rely on Eric Deggans’ review. I wasn’t expecting it to be much different from Stern’s usual show, with the addition of a few non-bleeped curse words. The addition of George Takei as inaugural satellite show announcer was a neat twist, I thought. It also led to some confusion for me, as I somehow assumed that Takei was a permanent replacement for Robin Quivers; Deggans later clarified this for me and confirmed that Quivers was still on the show.

The real impact, of course, is in the Benjamins. Specifically, if Sirius’ enormous commitment to Stern will pay off, and if so, whether or not it will change the talent/content economics of the entire radio business, satellite and terrestrial. I’m sure the investment will pay off for Sirius, but only in limited terms: It’ll keep Sirius afloat, but won’t move it out of second place behind XM. And I don’t see a ripple effect for other radio talent, simply because there’s no one else in the radio universe even close to Stern’s level — it was and remains a one-horse race.

I do like the snarky spin XM put on Stern’s coming-out party:

“Our content has not changed,” said Eric Logan, XM’s executive vice president of programming. “We have a platform targeted at mainstream America. There are more and more people who find Howard Stern repulsive and offensive and will go away from anywhere he is.”

If you can’t join them, flog ‘em.