Is Howard Stern going to stay on SiriusXM‘s airwaves? The company’s execs certainly want to keep their marquee talk-radio star.
SiriusXM is in the midst of negotiating a contract renewal for the radio host, who’s been with the satellite radio company for nearly 20 years. Amid recent rumors and speculation that he was “fired” by SiriusXM, given that his current deal is up at the end of 2025, Stern was scheduled to address the topic on his show Sept. 2 — but that has been postponed until next Monday.
That signaled that Stern hadn’t reached a contract renewal, and SiriusXM execs have now confirmed that their talks about bringing back “The Howard Stern Show” are continuing.
Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s chief content officer and president, speaking Wednesday at the Bank of America 2025 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference, said that with talent at the level of Stern, “you’re always gonna have an extended period of negotiations.”
“So Howard, for all these years and right up till now, is as important a single piece of content as we’ve had in the sense of being a lightning rod to get awareness for the service and publicity and all of that,” Greenstein said. “He’s the best interviewer out there, period, you know, bar none. And we’ve always had a series, as all of you know, of renewals. With any talent at that level, you’re always gonna have an extended period of negotiations. We’ve been pretty lucky all these years.”
Continued Greenstein, “We’d love [for Stern] to stay. It certainly has to make sense, but we feel pretty good that we’ve done this before, and we’ll see where it goes.”
Jennifer Witz, CEO of SiriusXM, added, “I think he’s been core to our platform for over 20 years, so I’m confident we’ll get to the right place.”
Stern, who is 71, first signed with Sirius in 2004 (prior to its merger with XM), in part to be free of oversight by the FCC, which had levied millions of dollars in fines on terrestrial radio stations that carried his show for alleged indecency. “The Howard Stern Show” debuted on the satellite radio broadcaster in January 2006. His most recent five-year renewal with SiriusXM was inked in 2020.
Greenstein, asked how SiriusXM determines the return on its talent deals, said the company looks at hours listened, ad revenue, social media and publicity (“which is basically in-kind free marketing”). “So those metrics will be there, you know, in considering a renewal,” he said. “On the qualitative side, it’s really just looking at what do they mean to the service, what do they mean potentially to this segment, what does it mean to have it be part of a spectrum of content that we have that’s out there.”
SiriusXM’s recent deal with sports commentator Stephen A. Smith for two shows “is a good example” of how the company evaluates content deals, according to Greenstein. Smith launched his new daily sports talk program, “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” on Sept. 2 and his upcoming live politics and culture program, “Straight Shooter with Stephen A. Smith,” will debut Sept. 17.
“While being relatively definitive and certainly polarizing, which is good for radio, in sports.. we knew what we were getting with Stephen A. We had him on the service for a little while through our ESPN deal and and other things. He’s emerged as probably the leading voice in sports, but much more importantly, Jennifer and I took a bet on where he was gonna end up in his political commentary, and he’s become a factor. He can get almost anybody on the air.”
Smith is “the only person I’ve ever seen beyond [Fox News’ Sean] Hannity at night and ‘The View’ in the morning” to be “uniquely suited where politicians and potential politicians wanna be on his show,” Greenstein said. “And with all that, he can be monetized from subscriber value, because we think we’ll get subscribers, ad revenue on his channel and his his show and his political show, and it’ll be released in podcast [form] and will result in podcast revenue as well. So all of those factors went into that.”
In an bid to expand its audience, SiriusXM has inked major deals with podcasters in recent years, including exclusive sales and distribution pacts with Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” and “Smartless” co-hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes. “The podcasters are so incentivized to grow their audience because with or without us, they want that audience for their ad sales,” Greenstein said. “And as we look at the data and find those segments we have, we’re gonna start to look to lean more on our content partners and talent to use their social media as part of the marketing thing.”
Greenstein said there could be a podcaster in SiriusXM’s stable whose shows it would make sense to offer exclusively on its platform, “the way Howard went behind the paywall from free radio. Maybe one day there’ll be a podcaster that has a large enough passionate audience that makes sense to go behind the paywall.”
Said Witz: “There could always be an exclusive content play. And we have a lot more data on what’s working today, and, you know, there might be an opportunity to do something new there.”
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