By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, august 6, 2025 at 1:46:00 a.m. edt
Howard Stern is the next woke celebrity to get "Colberted"
"(u.s.sun) the Howard Stern show on siriusxm is set to be canceled after a stunning 20-year run, sources exclusively told the u.s.sun.
Stern, 71, who has had a mega-bucks contract for decades at the subscription satellite radio provider, will likely cut some sort of deal for sirius to keep his catalogue upon his exit, sources said."
GRA: Well, back in the day, I taped Stern for two hours in the morning and listened to him, at night, at work. I laughed a lot. He was like "Hawkeye" Pierce and Groucho, but in an "R"-rated way. That was on regular radio.
Gilburt Gottfried appearances (available on youtube) were one continuous laughfest. Gottfried did an impersonation of Groucho Marx, when Groucho used to appear on the Dick Cavett Show in the early 1970s--with a much slower delivery (exaggerated). All ad-libbed.
"And...back in those days, someone invented what was called a...can opener. They called it that, because it used to open cans."
And Gottfried would say, "Groucho wasn't too funny anymore."
And Howard would say, "I guess not."
(I've seen those Cavett shows, and Groucho was fine.)
Stern also brought on a David Letterman impersonator called "Evil Dave," who said things "the real Dave secretly dreamed of saying." The guy was uncanny with his absolute mimicry of Letterman. This was in the mid-1990s.
Other celebrities (when there WERE celebrities) came on--like Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield, and many other comedians like Garry Shandling. Great stuff.
Then he went to sirius and that was the end of my listening to Howard--except for occasional clips on youtube. Still pretty good.
Who knows? Maybe Howard will take a pay cut, but whatever happens, I have to say, when he was on free radio, I definitely got my money's worth.
--GRA
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5 comments:
SIrius stock price chart wow! $500+ once upon a time, around $60 for a few years in the early 2020s, then collapsed more in 2024. In the past year it's floundered in the $20s, closed at $21.31 today.
Currently they want $24.98/month for "all access". $9.99 for "streaming only". Seems expensive but if they get $8 billion annual revenue, somebody is subscribing. No thanks, not me. Motley Fool's analysis.
For some years any service visit to a Ford dealer used to be followed by months of Sirius mailings begging me to subscribe. Now that's been replaced by constant mailings and phone calls from health insurance pushing "free" colonoscopy and a "free" at-home lab test. Make it stop, please!
jerry pdx
A sad tired end to a once great era, the Stern era of "shock radio". It started when Howard divorced his wife of many years and got involved with Beth Ostrovsky, a beautiful blonde with a brick house body. Howard was no longer sexually frustrated with a wife he complained wasn't sexually satisfying him. No longer salivating at the sexy women on his show and getting older he seemed to lose that pent up anger that seemed to be driving his bawdy humor. The first thing I noticed that just didn't seem right was his mushy on air love messages to Beth that were wimpy and pathetic, something he would have mercilessly ridiculed if he caught another celebrity doing it. After that the decline started, the hilarious Artie Lange got fired for being just a little too real and not fitting with Howard's new woke image for the show, then Marci Turk arrived who I suspect pressured Howard to be more PC. He quickly capitulated because it's secretly what he wanted to do anyways in order to appease the Hollywood celebrities he wanted to fit in with. Covid was the final nail in the coffin because Howard had an excuse to allow his germophobic psyche to take over, hiding in his basement doing his show remotely and losing that live studio feel that made his show a wonderfully entertaining madhouse. Then he became rabidly anti Trump, which was an insult to his audience because most listeners I think were Trump voters. As all who suffer from tds, his critiques were mindless and fact challenged, again he was posing for his Hollywood friends. Howard was always a political dunce but that fact never became so obvious until these last few years when he decided to virtue signal for his Hollywood friends.
Used to be I could tune into Howards and start laughing immediately or get hooked on the conversation. Anytime I've tried to listen these last 10 yrs. or so, it was tedious listening with only occasional flashes of the old humor. I saw Howard in an interview saying people who criticize him just want him to do the same old bits he used to do, as if they didn't want him to be creative anymore. No, they don't care if he does the same old bits, they want a Howard that tweaked the nose of the famous and wasn't afraid to do non pc outrageous bits. Unfortunately, that Howard is dead and gone.
Here is a little reminder of Howard's glory days. Remember Ted Danson and Whoopie Goldberg's infamous blackface incident? Here is Howard's hilarious bit satirizing two of Hollywood's most obnoxious woke poseurs. The word nigger is liberally sprinkled throughout:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uolCA2IP91k
Fantastic. He was fearless back in the day--and funny as heck.
--GRA
"SiriusXM has no plans to renew it at the price point Stern is expected to demand." (Yahoo Entertainment)
Legal Insurrection's take. Headline says "media dinosaur", ouch!
I've listened to maybe 45 minutes of Howard Stern, total, lifetime. My guess is that he clings to a podcast, however small the monetization.
Bruce Williams finally called it quits in 2010. HIs final show is still available on youtube TalkNetTapes. I think he mentioned how many (few) stations were carrying his show at the time, somewhere in these 2 hours. A classy exit.
And today, the domain name brucewilliams.com is available for purchase.
I remember Bruce Williams--classy show.
--GRA
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