Howard Stern's Pay-Radio Deal—Are They Sirius?


So, it's a brand-new year, the holidays are long over, and you're back commuting to work in your eight-year-old Camry. For Christmas, your father-in-law got you a year's subscription to Sirius satellite radio, so you switch it on to the Howard Stern show and he's talking about ... well, the usual: somebody's bra size, somebody's big butt, somebody's private parts. And driving down the interstate, you find yourself asking out loud: "Just what does a schlump like Howard Stern get paid for this crap?"

Well, for a single morning show, or four hours of lascivious thong sniffing and general frat-boy ruminations, he gets $384,615. To repeat: That's for one show. And he does five of them a week, and that works out to $100 million a year, and he has a contract with Sirius for five years' worth or until Sirius goes bankrupt, whichever comes first. That is exactly half a billion dollars. In short, Alex Rodriguez is playing baseball for chump change.

So put yourself in Howard's shoes, and imagine what you could buy with one day's pay for a teeny-weeny morning's worth of loose talk: a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz S550, a killer Porsche 911 4S, a Mercedes-Benz SLK350 folding-hardtop convertible, a slice-'n'-dice BMW M3, and how about a Range Rover HSE with cream piping on the leather seats? Plus, you still have enough left over for one night in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where you can send down for four bottles of Charles Heidsieck Champagne Charlie '85 Brut, four large langoustine pizzas, and 6000 six-packs of Corona beer. Plus you've got a couple hundred left over for tips and a bag of Key limes.

Oh, yeah, and the last 50 bucks goes for a nice blow-up doll and a red wig.

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