The Howard Stern Show, a radio fixture since the 1980s, is said to be ending soon

The Howard Stern Show, which has been on the air now for more than 40 years, first on terrestrial radio and since 2005 on SiriusXM satellite radio, is said to be on the verge of ending.

Reports in Britain’s tabloid The Sun and elsewhere say that the host’s latest five-year contract expires in the fall, but that it won’t be renewed.

“Stern’s contract is up in the fall and while Sirius is planning to make him an offer, they don’t intend for him to take it,” an unnamed insider told the paper. “Sirius and Stern are never going to meet on the money he is going to want. It’s no longer worth the investment.”

The insider added that Sirius may strike a deal for Stern’s library of content. “But as far as him coming back to doing the show, there’s no way they can keep paying his salary.”

A separate source said Stern’s political leanings may be a factor in the cancellation.

“If Sirius isn’t going to give Stern a good offer, I don’t think it would have anything to do with his ratings,” the source said. “It’s more likely everything to do with the political climate.”

The source added: “After you saw what happened with Stephen Colbert, it’s like they just can’t afford to keep him going.”

The comparison is an apt one. Colbert, host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was told last month that the show would end in May 2026. It was a move that many — not least Donald Trump himself — suggested was influenced by Colbert’s criticism of the now U.S. president over the years.

Similarly, Stern has in recent years become openly critical of Trump. In 2020 he called on Trump to resign from his first term as president for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. When Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. mocked him, he sarcastically referred to the the younger Trump as a “wit” and a “genius.”

And in 2023, Trump posted on social media that “The real Howard Stern is a weak, pathetic, and disloyal guy, who lost his friends and MUCH of his audience.” He added: “I did his show many times in the good old days, and then he went Woke, and nobody cares about him any longer.”

Stern’s radio persona has evolved over the decades. Originally known as a “shock jock” broadcaster — his move to SiriusXM was in part a way to get away from the censorship regulations of terrestrial radio — he gradually became a more serious and politically savvy interviewer.

Guests on his show have included U.S. President Joe Biden, who gave his first on-air interview while in office to Stern in April 2024, and U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, who spoke to him last October, just weeks before the nation went to the polls.

Stern, 71, got his start on radio in the late 1970s, with The Howard Stern Show beginning in 1981 on WWDC, a radio station near Washington, D.C. It moved to WNBC in New York the following year, and in 1985 landed at WXRK, where it stayed until its move to SiriusXM in 2005.

Stern signed a US$500-million contract with Sirius the following year, and his contracts with the platform over the last two decades are estimated to be between US$80 million and US$100 million a year.

Amid all the rumours, Stern made a surprise appearance (the show was on summer hiatus) on Wednesday to talk to Lars Ulrich of Metallica about the death of Ozzy Osbourne, and a new Metallica channel on SiriusXM. The topic of cancellation did not arise.

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