The Howard Stern Show's Long-Anticipated Big Announcement Announces ... an Upcoming Big Announcement
You may recall this post from The Howard Stern account on August 15th, and reposted a week ago. The apocalyptic tone. The defiant rhetoric. Audio clips of news anchors declaring Stern's career is over. Headlines splashing across the screen as it intones, "The tabloids have spoken." The voiceover leaning into the all caps words "FIRED" and "CANCELLED." Dramatic, Wagnerian music in the background. And the promise of a reckoning. In "IT'S WAR!" sized font promises, "HOWARD WILL SPEAK THE TRUTH."
That was followed up by journos reporting that things between Stern and SiriusXM were not as the gossip rags were claiming:
All we had to do was wait for September 2nd, and all will be revealed. Well, [checks calendar], it would appear that today is the big day. And Stern did not hold back. No siree Bob. The most shocking Shock Jock in the history of terrestrial or satellite radio was not going to disappoint his ever-dwindling audience. Like he has so many times before, he bravely and courageously stood tall in the swirl of a raging storm of controversy and spoke his truth.
That there'd be no announcement today:
That is vintage Stern. Fearless. Undaunted. Resolute. Defiant. Standing his ground. Not giving an inch. Defending his Free Speech rights as he's under attack from all directions and both ends of the sociopolitical spectrum. Boldly declaring he has nothing for us, but might in a week. Just stay tuned. And in the meantime enjoy this clip of Weird Al talking about how he approached Kurt Cobain about doing "Smells Like Nirvana."
Now to be fair, the chances Stern and SiriusXM are negotiating a new contract is a non-zero number. So it's possible the deafening silence is just a business decision. Keeping things in house so that he can maybe work out a deal and keep this gravy train rolling so we can get more content like John Stamos describing how he learned to stop worrying and embrace playing Uncle Jesse. If so, silence might actually be golden for him.
It's just that this is all the proof you need that the Stern who changed pop culture and entertainment forever is long since dead and buried. The guy who commanded the devoted, cult-like following of tens of millions every day of the work week would never have pulled this on his audience. That guy had no filter. No subject was off limits. His life - personal and professional - was an open book. Literally, since it all went into his books.
But this is the post-2015 Howard. The one who loved it when Ellen Degeneres would dance on her show, hates anyone who's hesitant to inject an experimental drug to make him feel safer, and refused to leave his mansion in the Hamptons two decades after he stayed on the air in mid-town after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. This one teases a huge announcement, and delivers "404. This Page Doesn't Exist."
So until he actually does have an actual announcement, the best thing any of his old followers can do is hope Sirius works out a deal to keep Howard 101 going, so we can still hear his old shows. And remember how good we used to have it.