In my personal opinion, I would have to lean more towards the shock value effect. While Howard Stern has many dedicated followers, he basically talks about the same thing every night only consisting of different people and scenarios. I do however enjoy watching every now and then his live broad casts, simply because he reminds me of such a little child, that it is actually entertaining. I think that any man that would like to go on air and talk or shall I say degrade women, would have just about the same fair shot as him. Now if you are a woman that can find humor in some of his perverted ways of talking down to women and his guest's more power to you! I just don't see how the women who participate in these shows can't see that he has them on his show playing in to his creepy and degrading nature to entertain other men who feel the same way about women, basically that they are meat. So no I do not feel it takes talent to run women down in such a way, that just takes getting your name out there to other people who feel the same.

A little of both. Howard has the talent to make anyone he finds interesting a star. Just take a look at Lester "Beetle Juice" Green. No one would have given BeetleJuice a second look but Howard gave him a platform to entertain millions and he (Lester) has turned it into a career. Also keep in mind that Howard Stern has sold millions of books, had a hit box office movie, and brought millions of people over to Sirius, which only had 600,000 subscribers before he signed.

He is not everybody's cup of tea but he is still The King of All Media IMHO.