It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
A big, explosive controversy that’s impossible to ignore! A jaw-dropping confession that outraged his corporate bosses! Or maybe he’d finally suffer the consequences of speaking “truth to power” — and pay the ultimate price for refusing to back down!
That’s how “The Howard Stern Show” was supposed to end.
This November marks the 100th anniversary of TS Eliot’s haunting poem, “The Hollow Men.” It’s a telling coincidence, for it foretold not just the fate of the world, but of a certain shock-jock: “This is the way the [Howard Stern Show] ends; Now with a bang but a whimper.”
This week, the news broke:
BREAKING: Howard Stern’s show is now being canceled by SiriusXM. pic.twitter.com/koUMrCxkSo
— The General (@GeneralMCNews) August 6, 2025
But calling it a whimper would be an overstatement. It was more of a “tree falling in a forest when no one’s around” situation, because Howard Stern’s audience abandoned him years ago: "Stern’s program has fluctuated from 20 million daily to just 125,000 of late."
That’s an astonishing fall from grace. There are, quite literally, thousands of nameless, faceless YouTubers, TikTokers, X posters, and “influencers” with far larger audiences than the one-time “King of All Media.” During his heyday, 20 million Americans famously listened to Howard Stern to “see what he says next”:
And now he’s a nobody.
Of course, he’s a very wealthy nobody. If your bank account is the only litmus test that matters, then Howard Stern is the greatest, most successful radio personality of all time. He made more money than everyone else, including Rush Limbaugh.
Even though Rush Limbaugh had more listeners.
It’s a fascinating comparison: More than any other two people, Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern were the public faces of American talk radio. They even shared the cover of Time Magazine. Both men made hundreds of millions of dollars — more money than they could spend in any one lifetime.
But whereas Rush Limbaugh concentrated on visibility — being on as many stations in as many regions as possible and then charging advertisers a higher ad-rate — Howard Stern retreated behind a paywall. Sirius (later SiriusXM) threw obscene sums of money at Stern to perform exclusively on its platform:
Between salary earnings, endorsement deals, and book royalties, Stern has reportedly earned over $1 billion during his tenure with SiriusXM alone. His current five-year deal, signed in 2020, pays him up to $120 million annually, though that figure includes production costs and staff salaries.
How bloated is this $120 million-a-year radio show(!) with an anemic audience of only 125,000 people? A recent Daily Mail article offered a clue: "Howard Stern's 95-strong staff had only one goal in mind when they gathered for a 'team building' bash in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon."
Are you kidding me? Nearly 100 employees are working on a show to entertain an audience of 125,000 people? And Sirius/XM is paying $120 million for that? How the hell does the math make sense?
Cue the Morgan Freeman voice-over: “The math doesn’t make sense. That’s why ‘The Howard Stern Show’ was canceled.”
(And honestly? The SiriusXM business model doesn’t make sense anymore, either. Nowadays, when most cars already have Bluetooth and Internet, it’s tough for SiriusXM to compete with all the freebies on YouTube, Spotify, and our personal playlists.)
Rush Limbaugh’s last radio show was on Feb. 2, 2021. Since then, his legacy has grown even larger: He remains the most beloved, respected, and admired conservative media personality in U.S. history. If anything, El Rushbo’s absence has made us appreciate his contributions that much more.
Howard Stern’s legacy will be far different.
He’ll go down in history as the highest-paid radio performer of his era. And what earned him this notoriety — i.e., outrageous radio stunts, like “lesbian dial-a-date,” daughters stripping in front of their fathers, and “Butt Bongo Fiesta” — will be a big part of his story. (As will the love and affection of Stern’s '90s-era fans: They would’ve followed Howard anywhere, including behind a paywall.)
But the second half of the story will be how an arrogant, out-of-touch performer lost his audience. Going from 20 million to 120,000 means he’s lost 19,875,000 people! That’s an outlandish rate of attrition.
So what went wrong?
About 10 years ago, Howard Stern stood at a crossroads. The choice was entirely his.
One path led to Donald Trump, the most historically significant president of our lifetime — and one of the most compelling newsmakers in world history. Back in 2015, when Trump announced his long-shot presidential bid, the future president considered Howard Stern a close, personal friend. They attended each other’s weddings, and Trump even asked Stern to speak on his behalf at the GOP Convention.
Had Stern said yes, he would’ve played a leading role in a helluva storyline: For the next decade, “The Howard Stern Show” would’ve been indispensable listening, because Trump is extremely loyal to his friends and would’ve called in all the time!
Stern didn’t need to switch formats and concentrate on politics. He didn’t need to join MAGA. He didn’t need to do any of that! All he had to do was avoid overt hostility.
But he couldn’t.
You see, after receiving all that money from SiriusXM, Stern yearned for something else: the love and acceptance of Hollywood liberals. Money and fans weren’t enough; Stern sought inclusion in Tinseltown’s trendiest dinner parties, and that just wasn’t gonna happen when he was race-taunting the adopted children of white liberals.
So the same guy who screamed bloody murder whenever ANYONE tried to control his speech — from the FCC to his corporate bosses — became the poster boy for the joys of Woke:
“By the way, I kind of take that as a compliment, that I’m woke. I’ll tell you how I feel about it. To me the opposite of woke, is being asleep. And if woke means I can’t get behind Trump, which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender or I’m for the vaccine, dude call me woke as you f**king want,” Stern declared [in 2023].
“I’m not for stupidity, you know. I ran out Friday morning. I was over at CVS. Thank you, CVS. I went over there 9 a.m. and got myself that new vaccine for Covid. F**king science. This f**king country is so great,” Stern celebrated.
Stern says he loves being woke.
“I am woke, mother**ker, and I love it. I want to be awake. I want to read legitimate news sources. Here’s how woke I am. I believe the election was not rigged,” Stern said of the 2020 election. “I am woke. I think that’s a compliment.”
In 2024, Howard Stern interviewed and endorsed Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, Joe Rogan interviewed and endorsed Donald Trump. One interview went viral; the other was a complete and total non-factor. Guess which was which?
It’s almost as if Joe Rogan’s audience is in the tens of millions — whereas Stern’s is only 125,000.
And when his contract ends, it’ll be zero. Howard Stern chose the second path, and all it cost him was his fans, his respect, his show, and his cultural impact.
Hope those Hollywood dinner parties were worth it.
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