Howard Stern signed a new three-year deal with SiriusXM. He's made roughly $100 million a year and helped build the entire paid subscription audio business since 2006. Walker argues Stern will keep broadcasting because he loves it, needs the status, and uses negotiations as leverage.
Chapters
Howard Stern stays and Sirius XM admits who built the house. Howard Stern is staying at Sirius xm, and the numbers explain why. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stern has signed a new three year deal. After months and months of speculation about his future on air, Stern told listeners, I'm happy to announce that I figured out a way to have it all, more free time and continuing to be on the radio. The financial terms weren't disclosed, but Stern's last deal was widely reported to pay about $100 million a year. Other reporting has put the put his major Sirius XM contracts over the past two decades at close to a billion dollars in total value. Stern joined Sirius XM in 2006, a move that helped legitimize paid subscription audio long before Spotify normalized. A Credit Suisse analyst once estimated that 15% of Stern listeners, about 2.7 million subscribers, could cancel if he ever left. Now, he made Sirius xm, there's no doubt about it. But he's also far and away their biggest expense. And at some point, if he's not willing to show up for work, they gotta ask themselves, do we really need him? So there's been this back and forth and teasing, and Howard Stern is great at that. He's a master at that. Let me go ahead and make one prediction right now, and it's, sorry if this sounds racist and sexist, but here it is. Old rich white men don't ever want to stop talking and having their opinions heard in the world, okay? Doesn't matter if you're Donald Trump. It doesn't matter if you're Elon Musk. Doesn't matter if you're me. And I'm not exactly in their same category. But talking on the radio, in the media, in front of a camera, and having people listen to you and some of them at least respecting you, is fun. People pay to do that. So the idea that Howard Stern is going to retire, I don't take it seriously. It's mostly a negotiating ploy, and it's a good negotiating ploy. He gets a lot of money out of Sirius xm and he's made them a lot of money. Now, some of these big dollars you see are inflated because it's money that goes to his production company. He then hires and pays the staff of a lot of salary. Robin Baba, Bowie, the whole cast of characters, if you're familiar with Howard Stern. But he is a genuine talent and he's been around for, you know, 45 years or so. He's seriously paid his dues before YouTube before podcasting, before any of this, he was there working his craft. Small town radio right outside New York City, but not a part of the New York City market. Initially, he famously turned his life into a movie, Private Parts and a book. I would recommend them both. I'm not personally a huge Howard Stern fan. I have a respect for his professionalism. He does something that's very difficult to do, which is he can talk about nonsense for hours and people find it interesting. If you think that's easy or nothing, you've never tried it. It's a very, very difficult thing to, to hold an audience, to build a relationship with an audience. And he's done it beautifully. He's done it extraordinarily well. Now, most estimates, and it's always hard to tell, but his net worth, I can't imagine it would be less than half a billion. It's probably more like a billion dollars. If he. Unless he has the absolute worst financial manager ever, he's probably a billionaire now. That's his right. Good for him. He doesn't have to disclose this. The reason I pointed out is he's not working for the Money. When Paul McCartney goes and performs at a music festival in Berlin or anyplace else in the world, he's not doing it for the money. He's doing it because it gives him joy to share his craft with the world. Same with Howard Stern. He might not love some of the early mornings, he might not love every interview, but at some point he loves talking, he. He loves attention, he loves sharing his ideas in the world. He loves being able to call somebody a moron or a boob or whatever. He loves having fun with his team, his cast of characters. And that's why I don't think he's ever going to retire now. What he could do if he got really angry with Sirius XM is just start his own media empire. People are doing it every day. Ben Shapiro has done it, Tucker Carlson has done it. But at this stage, at his age, does he want to start something from scratch and take on the risk and the management responsibilities? I don't think so. So I think there's an excellent chance he continues his days with Sirius XM and that he is speaking, having fun, entertaining, until the day of his last breath, which I hope is decades away. He certainly appears to be healthy and vigorous. I've seen him out jogging before when I lived in New York City. He seems to take his health very, very seriously and could be around for a long, long time. If you look at other radio Stalwarts. People have really been around a long time. They don't really retire unless they die or unless they have bad health. Rush Limbaugh did not get to live that long. He had lung cancer. He loved his cigars, okay? But he broadcast until pretty much close to the day he died. John McLaughlin, TV talk show host, did a show till the week he died. Pat Robertson, TV show host, media conglomerate owner, was doing it till he was 90. Kept on going. Paul Harvey, one of the most famous broadcasters from the 50s until just a decade or so ago, broadcasting until he died. So, yeah, they all want money. Everyone likes money because it's a way of showing status. And you can be more philanthropic. You can take care of your grandkids. And the case of someone like Howard Stern, their great grandkids are going to be well taken care of. But make no mistake about it, if you can be in a profession where you're creating, you're having fun, you're getting adulation, you're not going to retire. So just if you're an executive at Sirius xm, realize I'm sure Howard Stern can be difficult to deal with, but he is bluffing. He's never going to retire.
