The Josh Innes Show - The End Of Howard Stern

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

It's crazy to think the Howard Stern Show may be ending. The reports are that Sirius/XM will not be renewing his deal at years end. It's actually remarkable he's lasted this long in the current world of radio. How did this show ever actually generate revenue on satellite? Where did things go wrong? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So last night, the report came out that Howard Stern's probably going to be out at Sirius XM. I'm not someone that's going to sit here and celebrate that and relish that, but it's also some guy that's made a billion dollars to mail it in for the last 15 years. So, I mean, it's not like we can just sit here and feel sorry for the guy or sob or weep for the guy. He's extremely rich. He's still got a wife that's considerably younger than him. He lives in mansions and never leaves his house and is afraid of the Rona and everything else. Plus, he openly hates, openly hates anyone who doesn't feel the same way he feels politically.

So really, I'm not going to celebrate it because he's so inconsequential to me at this point in my life as a consumer of media. And he's so far out of sight, out of mind, and the zeitgeist of people that it's not even worth celebrating because who gives a shit, right? Like he is totally out of the zeitgeist. Let's play a couple of commercials, but we'll then get into the details. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it.

Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, so after nearly two decades on Sirius XM, the Howard Stern show is reportedly set to end later this year as Stern's contract, $100 million per year, expires and renewal negotiations falter. Insiders suggest Sirius XM is willing to match Stern's salary demands and is shifting its focus towards younger talent and podcast formats. That's the first thing. And I've always wondered this. And I don't have the data. I don't have the numbers, so I don't know. I'd like to know how big of a deal Howard Stern is to the actual bottom line. And when I say bottom line, I mean, off the top, there's $100 million each year for this show.

And I don't think he's making all $100 million. I think that $100 million each year pays for the entire staff. Like, that's the first thing. I think people get misled by the idea that Stern makes $100 million a year that his contract is $500 million. He signs these 500 million deals for five years. The 100 million, I believe, I'm 99% sure. The 100 million a year pays for the entire staff, but let's be real. He's not paying Bobabooie a ton, and he's not paying Robin a ton relative to what he's making or anybody else.

It's the cost to run that channel. So I don't know how much he's actually pocketing, but I'm going to guess that he probably pays himself 80 million of it, like 85. I don't know. He gets paid his shitload, so he ain't hurting. But I think that's the first thing. people get kind of misled by is the idea that Stern is making $100 million a year. He's not. But there's $100 million a year that goes towards that channel.

So right there is $100 million. And you're in a medium like it is radio while it's satellite radio and subscriber-based, and they do run some commercials. It is still a subscriber base, but it is radio. Let me give you a little background. So back in the day, radio stations used to bill. and when they say bill, it's the amount of revenue they generate from sales and everything else. Radio stations used to bill exponentially more than they do now.

If you look at the top billing radio stations in the country, I think on a year-in, year-out basis, I think it's WTOP in Washington, which is a news station, generates like 45 or 50 million. That might be high, actually. Let's look that up. Top billing radio stations in America. usually it's that and Kiss FM in L.A. and a couple others. All right, so here you go. This is from 2024.

WTOP, Hubbard Media's WTOP, estimated revenue in 2023, $66 million, okay? So $66 million at that stage. That's a huge number, followed by Kiss FM in L.A., which is $41,10,10 wins in New York, which is 40. A soft rock station in New York that's $33 million. The fan in New York generates $30 million. Those are the big dog. WBZ FM, which is the Sports Hub, is that it makes $32 million. It's also important to know that some of these have rights fees they have to pay for teams.

There's a lot of cost that goes into this. So while they're saying, hey, we made $32 million, well, let's look at a station like the Sports Hub that I know a little bit more about. The Sports Hub has the rights fees for a couple of the teams, the Patriots, most notably. So that's going to cost them a lot, I would assume. I don't think the Patriots would just give them the rights. Whereas like in Houston, just to kind of give you an inside baseball thing, in Houston, when the Texans came back, CBS paid, I believe, 70 or 77 million. It might have been 70 million over 10 years for the rights to the Texans. So each year, they were paying $7 million for the rights to air the Texans games.

So to even break even on the Texans, they had to generate $7 million. in sales and ad revenue just to break even and then make money. By the time I got there, it was an albatross for them. They couldn't make their nut in sales terms. They couldn't make their nut on that. That's why they eventually worked a new deal, which has kind of become the norm in a lot of markets, where they just gave the Texans all the inventory on the station.

So they said, hey, the eight hours of game day, you own that, and you can sell it for yourselves. And that's why, if you listened in Houston, you started getting, like, Texans radio, and it like eight in the morning on a Monday, Seth and like Seth and whoever was hosting the show with him, Mike Meltzer at the time,

or Seth and Sean Pendergast, they would leave at 8 and Mark Vandermere would come in because part of the deal was the Texans owned 8 to 10 on Monday mornings, or then the Gary Kubiak show would be this. So instead of them having to pay $7 million up front, they viewed it as a financial benefit to not have to pay that.

They don't get to make any money off of the games directly, but they get to make the money off the fact that they're the Texan station and it benefits their ancillary programming and that's why they do it. In some cities, they still pay rights fees. Like in St. Louis, you still have to pay to carry the Cardinals. And I would imagine in Boston, they're paying a lot of money to carry the Patriots games, if I had to guess.

Celtics may be a little different. Hockey, maybe a little different, cheap or whatever. But they're paying money. Detroit, they're still paying money for rights fees to carry the lions and the tigers and all that. So there's a huge cost that goes into that if you're a station in Boston. So even though you made $32 million, you're paying millions of dollars in rights, fees, and other shit. So who knows how much they're making, and salaries of all of the talent as well.

But radio is not what it used to be in terms of billing. It just doesn't generate as much money, which is pretty wild, too, because this WTOP is the highest revenue-generating station in the country at $66 million. They're owned by Hubbard Radio. I worked for Hubbard Radio. You think they could? They wouldn't have to lay off 20-something people at Hubbard Radio when they have a radio station making damn near double any other radio station that that's that close, but I digress. So, Howard Stern is on XM.

They're paying a guy and his staff $100 million a year in a world where the highest revenue-generating radio station in America only generates $66 million. And XM is based on subscribers, and who knows how many of those subscribers are actually going for Howard Stern, maybe early, 20 years ago it was. I don't know how many people are like, my God, I'm desperate to hear Howard Stern, so I must get serious XM so I can hear him. Like, I don't believe that's the case at all. I don't think people give a shit about Stern anymore. If they've subscribed for years and years to listen to him, they maybe still do.

Remember, Opie and Anthony were on there at one point, and that was a draw. But you're paying $100 million a year for a medium where the terrestrial version of what you do only bills at its highest $66 million. and that's the highest. Mind you, number 10 on this list generates about 30 million, which is less than half of what that does. How in the hell does serious survive paying anybody's staff $100 million? And now I think XM has put up a bunch of money for the Call Her Daddy podcast as well. And maybe she'll be the new star of XM, I don't know.

But she ain't going to cost what Howard Stern was costing. I wouldn't think $100 million a year. So just from a business standpoint, I've never fully understood. Good. Ex-Im has a lot of money wrapped up in talent. They're still paying like Mad Dog Russo a couple million dollars a year. And then they've got to pay the people on that channel. They're paying a lot of money to the people that are on like the 80s on 8. Like Martha Quinn probably makes a couple of bucks or Nina Blackwood. I don't understand how it's a viable model. And you can tell me, well, X number of people are paying like $10 a month or whatever. Here's the thing. All you have to do is cancel your XM. And then they'll call you and go, we want to bring you back. Here's like eight months. free or for 10 cents or whatever. I'm just, I don't understand the business model of XM and how it survives. Then you're paying a bunch of talent, all this cash. And then even though you're supposed to be commercial free, there's still commercials.

So it's just not a good business model. And that's why they're trying to get into the podcast business, which is costly because they're paying the podcast talent. But that's the world they're trying to get into now because I don't know anybody who truly gives a shit about XM. A source says Sirius and Stern are never going to meet on the money he's going to want. It's no longer worth the investment. While the network may seek to retain Stern's audio library, the show itself is unlikely to continue.

And that's the thing. I don't think anybody gives a shit. 20 years ago, I would have told you people would have been devastated. 10 years ago. When I got to Philly in 2013, Stern was about to celebrate a 60th birthday. And at that point, Stern still had some value to me. And I thought it was cool that I was going to be working on WYSP or WIP, but what used to be WYSP, which was the first Stern affiliate. Like, I really thought, like, this is badass.

Like, this is, I've made it. And I still had a large connection mentally to that. Me and Andy would talk about Stern a lot. So, you know, that mattered. Over time, Stern is just, he's just not what he used to be. And it's not even that you don't throw bologna on chick's asses anymore. And it's not that you're not doing the overly raunchy stuff. And I get that you've tried to transition into like the big interview guy, but then how often, like how many times do you give a shit to hear Howard Stern talk with, you know, Jonah Hill or one of his buddies about weird shit?

Like, I don't know. He's not top of mind anymore. Keep in his 70s now. But he's not top of mind. He's not someone that whose opinion matters. He is not an influential opinion guy. The only time he makes news ever. go Google him.

The only time Stern makes news is if he says something about Trump, and then a bunch of people who don't listen to Stern and will never listen to Stern, go off about how great Stern is and they conveniently forget all of the shit the guy did that was terrible and offensive that would have him have him canceled today, but they love him because he says the political shit they need him to say. And I guess you've got to give him some credit for surviving as long as he has. After being the shock jock for 30 years, transitioning into this world of like, well, you know what, I'm just going to be super political guys.

because that's what I have to do to survive. Maybe, you know, I mean, I think to a degree you've gotten that out of Dave Portnoy, he's kind of adjusted, although I'd call his more of a growth, maybe, because he's still kind of the same guy. Stern is nowhere near the same guy he was 15, 20, 25 years ago. But to a degree, I guess you give guys like that credit because they see the way the trends are going. They see the way things are moving.

And then they go, okay, this is the direction I need to start going to survive. And he's made hundreds of millions of dollars doing it. So maybe he's the smart one. and I'm not, but I don't view him as someone that I really admire. I don't view him as someone who is at the top of mind for anybody. His opinions mean nothing to anyone except to celebrity buddies. They're the only people. The only people you ever hear talking about Howard Stern are famous left-wing people,

celebrities. And they all tell you, now, mind you, here's the fascinating thing. They're all super woke. Yet they all love to talk about how much they loved Stern back in the 90s, like the Jimmy Kimmel's and these guys, love to talk about all the bits that Stern used to do. And in theory, they should be offended by all of these now because they're offended by everything everybody else does. Yet somehow, like, that special time and place is just regarded so positively by so many celebrities who now would just be appalled by all of that. so stern seemingly out stern is not interesting and like and then when you tell that to some people their their argument will be like oh you just don't like that he's grown and matured and you

just want you know he calls her windy the slow adult now or like none of that bothers me but i don't find the content to be good and the most notable thing about stern is back when he used to rail on imus. His whole thing was that imus was old and he was dating a much younger woman. And like, these were all the angles. And he was super political and all that. Stern is imus. Old dude gross to look at. Past his prime. Past his prime, not top of mind, married to much younger person. He's imus. And now. And now. Now, goodbye. Like, that's where we are now with Stern.

But man, when you think about some of the shit this guy used to do, like, and you guys know all these things, but, and I'm not saying that I like them because they were raunchy, like a lot of the sexual stuff was what it was. The real Stern that was the good Stern, before Artie got there, like that era in the early 90s to mid-90s with Billy and Jackie and everybody, that era of Stern, what was great about it wasn't that, oh, there's Pam Anderson talking about sex or whatever. That's cool. That's fine. That's on the e-show. Cool. The things that stood out the most were the social and racial discussions and the bits they would do, the kind of shit that just made light and made fun of all

of this dumb shit in the world. Shit you'll never do now because people don't understand the joke anymore. That's the shit that I look back on and go, whoa. When I hear Billy West doing the Marge shot impressions or when I hear Daniel Carver on there and they're doing the clan stuff or Black Jeopardy. Like you'll watch SNL and they'll do Black Jeopardy. And like all it is is like, hey, it's a goofy white guy and we're going to make fun of him for being a lame white guy. Black Jeopardy when Stern did it, like, whoa, controversial. There was a lot of shit he did that was also way over the top too. But when I think of Prime Stern like 91, 92, L.A. riots when he first gets to L.A. L.A. Riots, Marned shot, that type of shit. That was

elite level stern. And it's not because of the sex or any of that. It was just elite level shit. And it just, it was never the same after that. Really after Billy left and then really after Jackie left, it just wasn't the same. I like Artie. Artie's fine. But it just became a different show. And then it got to X-M and it was fun for a while. And then now what it is is a joke. It's a very lucrative joke for him, but it's a joke. All right, anyway, more to come.