Speaker 1: Caloroga Shark Media. Hi, I'm Johnny Mack. My phone is
Speaker 1: blowing up with people asking me about this Howard Stern story.
Speaker 1: So I thought, let me just record a commentary episode.
Speaker 1: I'm not working off the script. I'm just talking off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. In case you missed it,
Speaker 1: the US Sun was the original source of this The
Speaker 1: US Sun last week. Let me pull up the proper headline,
Speaker 1: just to get it right. The Howard Stern Show to
Speaker 1: be canceled after nearly twenty years, right, So, canceled is
Speaker 1: a loaded word in twenty twenty five the US Sun,
Speaker 1: And I'll let you for yourself decide where that is
Speaker 1: in terms of reporting, somewhere between the New York Times
Speaker 1: and Daily Comedy News. Whatever you think of the US Sun,
Speaker 1: this is from the US Sun. An insider said, Stern's
Speaker 1: contract goes up to the fall, and while Sirius is
Speaker 1: planning to make him an offer, they don't intend for
Speaker 1: him to take it serious. And Stern are never going
Speaker 1: to meet on the money he's going to want. It's
Speaker 1: no longer worth the investment after you saw what happened
Speaker 1: with Stephen Colbert. It's just like they can't afford to
Speaker 1: keep them going. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So once we
Speaker 1: say the word cancel, now we're also talking about Stephen Colbert.
Speaker 1: Forget about the Stephen Colbert of it all. But that
Speaker 1: totally to the side. This has nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: The source claims. If Sirius isn't going to give Stern
Speaker 1: a good offer, I don't think I would have anything
Speaker 1: to do with his ratings. It's more likely everything to
Speaker 1: do with the political climate. Now we'll see some more
Speaker 1: nonsense articles talking about how many people are listening to Howard,
Speaker 1: and I will get into that as well. Listen to me.
Speaker 1: Here's the premise of everything I'm going to say. And
Speaker 1: I say this as somebody who was already listening to
Speaker 1: WNBC as a was I even a teenager. Yet when
Speaker 1: Howard first came to the WNBC, I was already a
Speaker 1: listener to the station. And then this guy named Howard
Speaker 1: Stern started doing afternoons. I followed him to k Rock.
Speaker 1: I was at Serious Satellite Radio when the deal was announced.
Speaker 1: I was in Los Angeles the morning it was announced.
Speaker 1: I was there when Howard came on board, and we
Speaker 1: had fewer than one million subscribers. If I remember the
Speaker 1: numbers correctly, and I will tell you this. There is
Speaker 1: zero chance I'm not leaving the door open a crack,
Speaker 1: zero chance, zero chance that Howard Stern is gonna come
Speaker 1: back from summer vacation and be like, Yep, that's it, Robin.
Speaker 1: We're doing nine ten more weeks and that's it for
Speaker 1: my career. No way. Okay. I've heard people refer to
Speaker 1: the Derek Jeter farewell tour. That's what you're gonna get.
Speaker 1: Remember when Johnny Carson. Maybe you don't because I'm ancient,
Speaker 1: those of us who remember when Johnny Carson stepped down,
Speaker 1: you're going to get that. I always predicted Howard would
Speaker 1: do a two year farewell tour, and I'm still not
Speaker 1: sure that he won't. I guarantee you he does at
Speaker 1: least a one year farewell tour. Now write this down
Speaker 1: because people are just being stupid. Write this down. Okay.
Speaker 1: Howard has not really been in the news for like
Speaker 1: fifteen years, and now everybody's talking about him every day.
Speaker 1: He loves that. He absolutely loves that. Here's what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: He's gonna come back in September off the summer break,
Speaker 1: and he's going to lightly talk about the rumors. He's
Speaker 1: gonna dangle. He's gonna say phrases like I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, Robin. He's going to joke about
Speaker 1: how they're getting to the end. He is going to
Speaker 1: milk this for the entire fall, and on the very
Speaker 1: last day into Christmas break. So I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: late into the month Howard works these days, But maybe
Speaker 1: Thursday December eleventh, maybe Thursday December eighteenth, if I have
Speaker 1: to pick, I'm going to pick Thursday December eleventh, Howard
Speaker 1: and serious announce, Oh yeah, we've extended a deal. Now
Speaker 1: will he get one hundred million dollars reportedly this time?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have seen in the entertainment industry
Speaker 1: people renew for less and do less work. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know how much less work Howard could possibly do
Speaker 1: with the summers off in the three day weeks. But
Speaker 1: both sides are going to want the farewell tour. They
Speaker 1: were going to want every celebrity coming in, Lady Ganga,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, all the greats coming in and telling Howard
Speaker 1: how wonderful he is as he tries to cement this
Speaker 1: legacy that he's not the shock jock, he's not the
Speaker 1: person that did the ted dance and sketch. He's not
Speaker 1: lesbian dial of Date guy, he's not Beast Reality dial
Speaker 1: a day guy. He's the respectful great interviewer that he's
Speaker 1: been trying to spend these last few years. There will
Speaker 1: be a farewell tour. The idea that Howard Stern is
Speaker 1: just quietly going to go into the night, no way,
Speaker 1: and conflating this with Colbert that's just nonsense. So more
Speaker 1: nonsense going around is this nonsense that Howard Stern has
Speaker 1: an enemy at Serious XM. Again, the source on all
Speaker 1: this the US Son. I'll let you determine how much
Speaker 1: you enjoy the writing of the US Sun. So this
Speaker 1: version of the story, which got amplified by page six.
Speaker 1: Who are sourcing the Sun? Is that Serious XM executives
Speaker 1: have to take pains to keep Alex Cooper and Howard
Speaker 1: Stern from running into each other. Now, please understand the
Speaker 1: geography of the Serious headquarters in New York City, where
Speaker 1: I worked for ten years. Now. I haven't been into
Speaker 1: building a ten years, so maybe perhaps possibly there's been
Speaker 1: a major change. But I do know some former co
Speaker 1: workers and no one has mentioned this to me. When
Speaker 1: I was there, Howard was off in his own compound.
Speaker 1: You couldn't get into howard Land unless your key card
Speaker 1: would let you into howard Land. Mine did not. And
Speaker 1: you never ever, ever, ever saw Howard Stern, except if
Speaker 1: you happen to be in the lobby when he was
Speaker 1: leaving for the day, walking from Howard Land to the
Speaker 1: freight elevator, which he would take down because you don't
Speaker 1: want to write a civilian elevator. You might run into
Speaker 1: some civilians. You didn't see him in the hallway, you
Speaker 1: didn't se him in meetings, he didn't see him in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. He's off in howard Land. So this idea
Speaker 1: that I don't know he's going to run into the
Speaker 1: hallway and see Alex Cooper. Even if Alex Cooper happened
Speaker 1: to be standing in front of the freight elevator, it
Speaker 1: would be a six second encounter. An insider told the son,
Speaker 1: she's the one that bugs him. She gets hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of hits. She has this mega one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five million dollar deal, and he hates that this
Speaker 1: young bubbly woman is the new thing. They have to
Speaker 1: keep Howard away from her. They have to keep Howard
Speaker 1: away from when she comes to New York, so he's
Speaker 1: there three days a week. I don't know how often
Speaker 1: she's there. This is a non story. The source claimed.
Speaker 1: It's completely turned Howard's world upside down. He's been in
Speaker 1: radio forty years and this change has really shocked everyone.
Speaker 1: Alex and Joe Rogan. These massive podcasters have traditional radio
Speaker 1: guys stunned. This is all silly. I am also a
Speaker 1: college professor, and I have walked people through the math
Speaker 1: of the Howard Stern deal for over a decade. Now.
Speaker 1: Serious these days has a trillion different plans and I
Speaker 1: try to look into it and I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: But the math, the way I used to teach it
Speaker 1: when I worked there, Serious was thirteen dollars a month. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: how many people do you think came over for Howard?
Speaker 1: When Howard came over, we had around a million subs.
Speaker 1: They've eventually got up to thirty million subs. Do you
Speaker 1: think one million people came over for Howard Stern in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six? Is that an absurd number? Let's
Speaker 1: use that number. So if a million people came over
Speaker 1: and paid thirteen dollars a month for twelve months a year.
Speaker 1: That's one hundred and fifty six million dollars. You give
Speaker 1: a hundred million to Howard, you make a fifty six
Speaker 1: million dollar profit. If the number's not one million, if
Speaker 1: it's two million, now you're making some serious change. I
Speaker 1: saw a report the other day that said Howard's audiences
Speaker 1: down to only one hundred and twenty five thousand listeners.
Speaker 1: I don't know where someone would get that number from.
Speaker 1: When I worked there, you had no way to know
Speaker 1: who was listening to what on the satellite radios. You
Speaker 1: could look at Internet data and extrapolate it from streaming.
Speaker 1: Maybe the newer radios have some two way capabilities that
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of. Maybe somebody did a survey with
Speaker 1: Nielsen Audio. I don't know, but fine, I'll accept your number.
Speaker 1: If we multiply one twenty five by twelve, by thirteen,
Speaker 1: we would reach nineteen million, five hundred thousand. So if
Speaker 1: the value of Howard Stern at that calculation is a
Speaker 1: nineteen and a half million, then you wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to pay him one hundred million dollars, but you could
Speaker 1: pay him twenty million dollars. Get the Howard halo effect.
Speaker 1: Do the farewell tour and what you'll get from him
Speaker 1: is twenty million dollars worth of work. So whatever he's
Speaker 1: doing now, you'd get a fifth of that. And in
Speaker 1: the end, we used to joke when I work there,
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to do the show. You just
Speaker 1: need press release to go out. So, as I wrote
Speaker 1: in my sub stack link in the show notes, Howard
Speaker 1: could work. I don't know, fifteen days next year, as
Speaker 1: long as it's the right fifteen days and it's the
Speaker 1: maybe the January Birthday party, the big farewell event. Could
Speaker 1: Howard sell out the Garden once? I think he could.
Speaker 1: If weird al can, I think Howard Stern can. Maybe
Speaker 1: you do a big event there. You do a couple
Speaker 1: of farewell things. Paul McCartney comes in, Lady Gaga comes in,
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks comes by. You do fifteen of those. Here's
Speaker 1: twenty million, Howard. That might be enough. No, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he's gonna do fifteen shows, but maybe he's gonna
Speaker 1: make a little less work a little less. But the
Speaker 1: idea that Howard Stern is just going to come back
Speaker 1: and be like Robin, We've got nine weeks left. It's
Speaker 1: been a great forty years. Zero chance. And that is
Speaker 1: some bonus commentary for today. I'm going to do another
Speaker 1: bonus commentary tomorrow about Mark Marin. I do not intend
Speaker 1: on doing this every single day, but I just had
Speaker 1: two topics on my mind that I wanted to share
Speaker 1: with you back in the morning with a normal episode