Howard Stern in 'Private Parts' (1997) Everett Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment The station's ratings guy was explaining the squishy reality of its newest star. "The average Howard Stern fan listens an hour twenty minutes," the numbers man told program director Pig Vomit. "The average Stern hater listens for 2 1/2 hours a day." "If they hate him," Pig Vomit asked, growing loud and exasperated, "why do they listen?" That scene, of course from 1997 Howard Stern biopic Private Parts (Paul Giamatti forever), offers just a taste of the innovations Stern has ushered in over a 45-year career in radio. He has seemed as available as air, as longstanding as that set of lawn chairs, for so long that you can forget the novel twists that made him that way. In addition to hatewatching, Stern ushered in the envelope-pushing ensemble that soon became an FM morning-show staple, the loose hang now the calling card of podcasters, the viral moment that presaged Internet culture, the personal-confessional style that would sweep through talk-television journalism, and the candid sex chatter now common, well, everywhere. Related Stories Business SiriusXM Reports Drop to 33 Million Paid Subscribers, Strength in Podcasting Business 'Morbid' Podcast Moves to SiriusXM In Multiyear Deal (Exclusive) Oh, and he was a TV pioneer, with a televised simulcast of the show in the New York market in the early 90's and pay-per-view specials that in retrospect look like nothing less than proto-streaming - specialized video content that believed that just because something wasn't for everybody doesn't mean that somebody wouldn't pony up for it. All this could now be coming to an end with word that Stern's show on SiriusXM could get scrapped, as tabloid rumors are fed by a new promo running on Sirius suggesting the host will reveal all right after Labor Day. The very fact that he's here is itself a sign of Stern's pioneerism, having ditched terrestrial radio and its FCC-flavored friction (which, let's face it, helped his career more than hurt it) nearly 20 years ago to join a digital-content land-rush that many other entertainers would soon follow. Stern is, as his quinquennial tradition, about to enter a contract negotiation he may not want to be in. He has threatened to call it a day many times before, and this time, at 71, he may actually mean it. (The death of his longtime agent Don Buchwald last year doesn't help the process.) Also, for the first time ever, SiriusXM might finally mean it, evaluating what a show that likely retains a few million subscribers is worth - and whether it's the reported $100 million they pay Stern annually. This could all end up a tempest in a teapot with a re-up and a hometown discount. Or it could mean an already reduced schedule, often broadcast from Stern's home in Southampton, will be slashed further or disappear entirely as Stern retires or, less likely, migrates to Spotify or Netflix. Whatever happens, the moment feels new. Even the possibility of Stern going away is a signal of how things have changed for the iconoclast. And if he stays, he'll be facing an era where his all-purpose media stardom has been diminished. One part of the narrative is that Stern is past his prime, lapped by the very people whose stage he set. Shock-jockery is funny like that. The more successful you are, the more irrelevant you can become. It happened to Madonna, surpassed by Gaga and then Beyoncé in the showmanship-as-feminism department, and by Taylor Swift in the self-mythologizing department, all of which made the actual still-touring Madonna at best a curiosity or nostalgia play. (About the only flamboyant 80's New York-tabloid figure it didn't happen to is the person sitting in the West Wing, but that's a column for another day.) And it could happen with Stern, now made irrelevant by the very people whose careers he enabled. Most conspicuously by Alex Cooper, the 30-year-old Call Her Daddy podcaster and rising Sirius star who also talks freely about sex and also parlays an intimate style into some very famous and disarmed guest interviews, capturing some of the young devoted audience that Stern long ago did. In October my colleague James Hibberd asked Cooper what she thought of taking the mantle from Stern at Sirius and she took the diplomatic high road. "I don't think there's ever any time that anyone is taking over for Howard," she said. Left unsaid is that no one needs to. The other part of the story involves Stern's personal transformation - where he is, where male-oriented audio media is. Stern supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 even as he had Trump on the show, the start of the shift, then three years later said he regretted the move. Support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris followed, and by now Stern is practically a card-carrying member of the