On August 5, rumors began swirling that “The Howard Stern Show” will likely be canceled after nearly 20 years on SiriusXM, as Stern’s five-year, $500 million contract is set to expire in the fall of 2025. While Stern has not confirmed the cancellation, several sources have hinted that financial disagreements and Stern’s evolving political views indicate his departure is imminent.
On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn gave an overview of Stern’s radio career and explained the real reason his days are likely numbered.
When Glenn was just 18 years old, he worked at the WPGC in Washington D.C. — one of the most popular radio stations in the metroplex. “For years it had been number one, and then Howard Stern came along and … took everything and turned everything upside down,” he says.
Glenn recalls how Stern made light of the Air Florida Flight 90 tragedy in 1982 when a plane crashed into the 14th Street Bridge, killing 78 people.
“While they were digging bodies out of the Potomac, [Stern] called the airline and tried to book a seat live on the air,” Glenn says.
Despite his brashness, Stern was popular because he brought something to radio that the industry had never seen before: edginess.
“He was like punk rock,” Glenn says. “You didn’t necessarily listen to punk rock because you liked punk rock. You listened because nobody else was saying anything like that.”
Stern’s approach had both dark and light sides. “He fought the government and won. … He was a trailblazer for freedom of speech, but he was also a trailblazer for just degrading our society, the degrading of women and relationships and everything else,” Glenn says.
“He was a pox on our culture for a very long time,” but “he was an innovator, to be sure.”
Then sometime in the early 2000s, Stern began to change.
“He started to just concentrate on interviews, and he became one of the best interviewers of anybody on radio or television,” Glenn says, recalling how he found himself telling Stern things he “hadn’t told anybody before” during their 2015 interview.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, was when Stern lost all touch with the rebel he used to be.
“I think COVID radicalized him into this big-state monster,” Glenn says, noting how Stern now embraces the very people and systems he used to spit on.
“I mean, the 20-year-old Howard Stern would be disgusted with the 70-year-old Howard Stern,” he says.
Some leftists claim that Stern’s departure has something to do with Donald Trump, but Glenn dismisses it as completely unfounded. “Donald Trump was a regular on [Stern’s] show for a very long time, and Howard Stern loved him until he became president of the United States … because he was on his journey of just becoming this diehard Democrat,” he says.
“As soon as Donald Trump became the candidate, he went nuts and never changed on that, and then COVID happened and he went even crazier.”
Stern’s impending cancellation mirrors Stephen Colbert’s, he says. “You’ve just lost touch with what you do and who you are.”
Both Stern and Colbert made the fatal mistake of “taking [themselves] so seriously” that they started to believe it’s their destiny to “change the world.”
“I think that’s the problem,” Glenn says.
To hear more of his analysis, watch the episode above.
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