Delighting uncles, brothers-in-law, and “co-workers you’re friendly with but would never hang out with outside work” everywhere, radio host and former Fartman Howard Stern has signed a new deal to keep himself on the air at Sirius XM for at least another five years. The deal comes just days before Stern’s last five-year contract with the company was set to expire, and reportedly bounced the satellite radio provider’s stock price up 5 percent upon announcement to a Baba Booey-loving world.
2015 marked Stern’s 10-year anniversary with the satellite radio provider, which has hosted his iconically vulgar chat show ever since he was driven from terrestrial radio by an FCC sent spiralling into madness by the sanity-shattering vision of Janet Jackson’s naked breast. In the years since, Stern has utilized the company’s technology to keep our planet and mid-priced sedans comfortably filled with calls from the Wack Pack, various lewd-but-erudite inneundos, and the occasional Steve Rannazzisi mea culpa.
Meanwhile, the deal will also tap into humanity’s ongoing, inexplicable, and ultimately self-destructive urge to see what Howard Stern looks like while he’s talking, including a hefty video component to feed into Sirius’ planned onling streaming app. The deal apparently includes a 12-year agreement giving Sirius access to “the Howard Stern archives and special programming,” ensuring that any human beings seeking to gaze into Stern’s hollow, sunglass-covered eyes have a safe, dignified way to do so.
Stern, who’ll be 73 when the video deal expires in 2027, released a statement to accompany the announcement, reminding detractors that his massive fanbase and reputation are backed up with a healthy helping of cleverness and talent. “If you are not listening to SiriusXM and The Howard Stern Show,” he wrote, dipping his toe in the kind of hyperbole that might once have convinced a man to declare himself “King Of All Media,” “Then you are really more like a zombie, a rotting corpse monster, living half a life, deadened and blackened inside. It’s as if you were still watching black and white television while shopping in actual stores on your way to the post office to fax a memo.” Well, you heard the man, corpse monsters: Shoot your brother-in-law a fax and give this Howard Stern guy a try.