Howard Stern Show May be Next Media Dinosaur to Fall
“Sirius and Stern are never going to meet on the money he is going to want. It’s no longer worth the investment.”
Last week, the big media story was that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was being canceled. This week, it’s Howard Stern’s turn.
Stern is reportedly less than pleased with what Sirius XM is willing to pay for his show going forward, and the network is discouraged by Stern’s dwindling audience, so they’re on a collision course that could very well lead to the end of the show.
From Yahoo Entertainment:
Howard Stern’s Long-Running Show Reportedly On The Chopping Block, Leaving Staff Alarmed After 20 Years
Howard Stern may be retiring from SiriusXM after 20 years, as insiders claim the network won’t meet his salary demands.
While talks over his audio library may continue, a return to live broadcasting is unlikely. Political tensions, especially Stern’s criticism of Donald Trump, may also play a role.
Fans are divided, with some praising his evolution and others blaming his political stance and AGT stint for the show’s decline. Howard Stern first rose to fame in the 1980s and became a radio icon.
After 20 years on SiriusXM, “The Howard Stern Show” may soon “be canceled,” sources revealed to The U.S. Sun.
According to insiders, Stern’s long-standing and lucrative contract with the satellite radio giant is set to expire this fall, and SiriusXM has no plans to renew it at the price point Stern is expected to demand.
“Stern’s contract is up in the fall, and while Sirius is planning to make him an offer, they don’t intend for him to take it,” one source claimed. “Sirius and Stern are never going to meet on the money he is going to want. It’s no longer worth the investment.”
While negotiations over Stern’s massive audio library could still be on the table, the same source emphasized that a return to live broadcasting is unlikely: “But as far as him coming back to doing the show, there’s no way they can keep paying his salary.”
Stern and Colbert actually have a few things in common. Both men allowed their pathological hatred of Trump to transform them; they both helmed media institutions, and they both got to a point where their massive salaries were no longer sustainable based on their reach.
In Stern’s case, it’s particularly sad as he used to be such a great voice for the counterculture, the outsider. In the age of Trump, Stern embraced the establishment and defended it with cringetastic results.
His 2024 interview with Joe Biden is barely watchable.
May, 2024. Howard Stern conducts one of the most shameful and cringiest interviews in the history of American media.
As a barely functioning Biden sat there listening, Stern spent an hour spewing pure sycophantic propaganda. He recited all the fake stories that Biden has told… pic.twitter.com/soUUMurraP
— MAZE (@mazemoore) August 6, 2025
Last year, Howard Stern said he "hated" anyone who voted for Donald Trump and demanded they stop listening to his Radio Show.
Today, it’s been announced that SiriusXM has CANCELED ‘The Howard Stern Show’ after his Ratings plummeted.
FAFO, Howard! 🔥🤣 pic.twitter.com/4eWqX05OSf
— Cillian (@CilComLFC) August 6, 2025
Last word goes to Glenn Beck.
SiriusXM isn’t canceling Howard Stern because of politics. Just like Stephen Colbert, he has lost touch with who he was and cut his audience in half. The 20-year-old punk rock Howard Stern would be disgusted with the Big Government shill he has become.
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) August 6, 2025
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
He was funny many years ago, but he has been tedious for a while. Driving away half his audience was not a good career move.
He was funny with 9 yo humor. He was an embarrassment. It speaks volumes of his listeners over the years.
He was South Park before there was South Park.
But South Park did it bigger, longer, and better.
Once edgy, he became an old man captured by The Blob.
Same trajectory as Drudge.
South Park was is and probably will remain funny. Stern was never funny. He was just crude, obnoxious. and useless as only a NY Jew attending BU can be.
Howard’s gone downhill. He’s not a Stern as he used to be.
Half? His audience is 0.65% of what it was at his peak on terrestrial radio. His descent into a leftist regime mouthpiece during COVID capped by his softball interview with Harris alienated pretty much everyone. Sirius is paying him $100,000,000 yr. They aren’t going to keep paying someone with no audience
Meh.
Stern was always neurotic, which was part of his humor. But given how crazy he got over Covid sort of suggests he is probably better off doing something else. He is not funny, just shrill and weird.
As a kid who grew up in the 80’s I of course know Stern’s history. I was never a fan. He just didn’t sit right with me, and I honestly don’t see his recent transformation as an actual transformation, but as a revelation of his true form.
No one more deserving. Probably the biggest hypocrite in show biz. Probably the biggest wimp, too.
After Stern became a rabidly obnoxious, march-in-lockstep, Dhimmi-crat lemming, he stopped being funny. Actually, he stopped being funny long before that. His shtick was already tired and old, decades ago.
What’s brazenly hypocritical about Stern’s morphing into a lazy and dutiful Dhimmi-crat fanatic, is that he used to represent anti-establishment thinking and iconoclasm.
Then, he decided to join the establishment, as represented by the vile Dhimmi-crat Party.
The whole concept of shock jockery repelled me. It wasn’t Stern, but there was some show on in NYC way back when, and one of the shock jock dares to the audience was to go into a very famous old cathedral and have sex, then call in and say they did it. St. John the Devine or another as well-known. This was several decades back and the country was already in steep social decline.
That was The Opie and Anthony Show. The bit was their getting the audience to have sex in unusual places, call in and the most outrageous won something or other. Two people called in from the Cathedral and shear panic ensued at the station including from Opie and Anthony who thought there was a delay so they could censor stuff but no one had set it up. That episode led directly to their show being cancelled.
Stern famously commented on it saying that stunt was too far even for him and they should never have aired that which was quite something from the guy during his peak strippers phase. If you went too far for Howard Stern you were really off the reservation
I should point out that wasn’t only that the people were having sex in St Patrick’s Cathedral, they were doing it in the Baptismal Pool
I remember the St Patrick’s Cathedral incident, but I don’t think the last part you.posted is correct for 2 reasons:
1. I heard it, and don’t remember anything other than they were inside the church;
2. It would be highly unlikely for a Roman Catholic Church to have a “baptismal pool”. They don’t dunk people. They use a Baptismal Font, which is much smaller than a pool – and much too small for even one person to sit in.
To each their own. Anthony Cumia (of “Opie and Anthony” fame, the duo responsible for the bit you referenced) is a funny guy, and, a big-time conservative. His solo show is entertaining and, I find him funny. That’s not to say that some of the duo’s antics weren’t over-the-top or in poor taste. The nature of this kind of radio was to constantly push the envelop, which admittedly resulted in bits that were high on shock value/offense, and, not necessarily funny.
I never liked Stern. Shock jocks were never my thing. Though I have to admit that his movie was pretty fun.
I’m surprised to hear that he’s still “on the air”, or whatever satellite radio qualifies as. I thought he had retreated into a cave for COVID and never came out. Well … you learn something new every day.
The real “news” aspect of this story to me:
Howard Stern still has a show?
I think what this proves – and holds true for other 80s/90s anti-establishment types (KISS, Rage Against the Machine, are two others I can think of) – is that they were never ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT.
They were and are ANTI-Judeo-Christian culture.
When they came onto the scene, the Judeo-Christian societal norms were still in effect: marriage before children, work hard, get an education (a real one – even in the trades), honor those who came before, etc. They did not like those norms and raged against those. So they became known as ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT. But they never were really, truly, anarchist anti-establishment.
my off-the-cuff hypothesis anyway
Great point.
It’s what happens when the “never trust anybody over 30” crowd hits 70.
He became as funny as an impacted wisdom tooth. He is past his prime and past his time.
A crass vulgarian. Good riddance.
Radio host Anthony Cumia (formerly of “Opie & Anthony), and now running his own solo show on censored.tv, is what Howard Stern used to be — a totally unfiltered, anti-establishment, “I don’t give a damn” about censorship restraints/political correctness/racial holy cows, personality.
Those two are the ones who did the sex in a cathedral stunt I note in a comment above.
And, of all people, Sean Hannity – he of “war against Christmas” ranting and raving because of “Seasons Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” signs in retail stores, he of the too-sincere, sappy, gooey-good innocence delivery – had O & E on as regular guests.
Yeah, I concede that O&A sometimes went overboard. I didn’t listen to it, at the time it was on the air. That said, some of the hosts, such as the late comedian, Patrice O’Neill, and, Jim Norton, were/are hilarious, especially joking in tandem with Anthony Cumia.
I’ve heard his name for decades, and about his ‘shock jock’ reputation, but I’ve never listened to his show, and apparently, I am blessed because of it.
I could listen to him but only in small doses. He is 71, it is time for him to retire.
Stern was anti-establishment and iconoclastic only in the way an spoiled 11-year old boy is, someone who establishes a reputation for saying dirty words and using bathroom humor in front of the grownups.
Only other 11-year olds ever thought he was funny, and now only those infected with virulent TDS like his shtick.
Your description of Stern as an 11 year old is the best description in the comments so far.
I said 9 above. At some point most people grow out of bathroom humor. Some never do and Stern is one of them,
I thought his show was funny when I first heard it when I moved to NYC. I would listen a couple of times a week and I liked Robin and Stuttering John (scalping his high holiday tickets). Then he, I don’t know, mocked or just dismissed when the singer Salena was murdered. After some pressure he issued some crazy jackass apology in an obviously Spanish accent were he rolled his r’s. I thought he was the worst. That’s not anti political correctness or edgy and hip; it’s freak show level shit. I’m glad he flipped out during Covid. Couldn’t happen to a better guy.
Howard’s show on 9/11 was one of the greatest moments in broadcast journalism. It was not long after that his show started going downhill. He once railed against the man; now he is the man. He is pig vomit.
In the grand scheme of things, Stern always was, and always will be,, inconsequential.
He won’t be missed by very many.
I’m a broadcast engineer and while Stern is a radio host, the same rules of television apply here.
Rule three It’s not “show art”, it’s “show business”.
When you alienate 50 percent of your potential audience, turn from a proven comedic formula and embrace a political ideology that consistently finds itself on the wrong end of 80/20 issues, chances are you will find yourself retired.
It is always simple for radio and TV – you must bring in the audience for the ads to provide the money. If you do not then the show is gone. Stern has lost most of the audience so he is gone.