Howard Stern said Thursday he is still in the midst of contract discussions with broadcasting corporation SiriusXM and, at the same time, addressed the rumors that he would be taken off the air before long for being “too woke.”
Stern went on vacation for several weeks in August and early September. When his hiatus ended up going longer than expected, rumors began to swirl about his future with SiriusXM. His current contract with the broadcaster is set to expire at the end of 2025. That, combined with the Trump administration’s public hostility toward radio and TV figures who speak out against them, has made some of Stern’s listeners concerned about his odds of staying on the air.
Stern played into those rumors in early September when he had fellow SiriusXM personality Andy Cohen host the opening minutes of his first show back from vacation. During a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live,” though, Stern addressed the speculation with utter incredulity.
“I was on vacation, and the next thing I know I was in Stephen Colbert land where I was being thrown off by the FCC somehow, I don’t know what, whatever it was or because I’m too woke,” Stern reflected. “Too woke? I don’t even know what woke is. What is woke? If I’m too woke, the world has turned upside down. I mean, holy s—t. The stuff I do and talk about, I don’t even know what that means. But you know what, if it means I’m awakened, God bless.”
“It might mean that you care about other people,” Cohen offered, to which Stern replied, “Yeah. I mean, it’s suddenly not macho to give a f—k about anybody, but I’m not being fired. I’m talking to Sirius right now about extending in some way, and, if that works out, great. I love this company. I do.”
Stern has had his own clashes with the FCC, mostly notably in the ’90s and 2000s when radio license holders were fined $2.5 million for airing content from his radio show that was deemed at the time to be “indecent.” During a late September edition of “The Howard Stern Show,” the radio host said the experience was “very traumatizing” for him. “I remember feeling very victimized because deep down in my heart, all I wanted to do was make people laugh,” Stern reflected.
Stern first joined Sirius in 2006 when he signed a deal that made him, at the time, one of radio’s most well-paid broadcasters. His show has remained a constant cornerstone of Sirius’ programming lineup since then, even following its merger with XM in 2007 and its acquisition over the years of other popular podcasts and radio shows, like “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” and “Call Her Daddy.”
Right now, Stern is nearing the end of the five-year, $500 million deal he signed with SiriusXM in 2020. “Today, there’s this robust company,” Stern told Cohen on Thursday, reflecting on the growth and success he has seen — and helped facilitate — at SiriusXM over the last 19 years. “I’m very proud of it, and if I do end up staying with this company, I’m going to take ownership of that.”
