Howard Stern has chosen to stay put with SiriusXM, cementing a new three-year deal with the satellite radio company, he announced Tuesday morning. "I'm thrilled to announce that I've found a way to have it all," Stern exclaimed to his listeners. "More free time and continuing to be on the radio. So yes, we're back for three years."
Stern's future with SiriusXM had been the subject of tabloid speculation for months, after an earlier report this year suggested his show was about to be axed. Stern played a prank on his listeners (and some in the media) by hyping his return to the radio, only for Andy Cohen to sign on to announce that Stern had been fired and he would be taking over his channel.
Stern eventually came on to clarify that he and SiriusXM were still negotiating his future. Though the terms of his new deal were not immediately clear, Stern said it was for three years and would allow him "more flexibility," suggesting his appearances may become less frequent. His last deal was a five-year deal worth an estimated $100 million per year.
One of the most iconic radio hosts in history, Stern left terrestrial radio in 2006, choosing satellite radio for the freedom it offered him to say what he wanted. While he no longer hosts every weekday morning as he did when he first launched the satellite radio show, he still goes live frequently.
SiriusXM has been diversifying its roster of talent by striking deals with a slew of podcasters and hosts in recent years, but Stern has always held a special place in the company's heart. He helped build SiriusXM when the technology was new and unproven, and created a premium audio subscription offering before Spotify even existed.
"I love this company. I truly do," Stern said. "I feel very loyal to this company. They wanted me back, and they said, 'Whatever you want to do, we'll do for you.' Who says that to anybody? When does your boss say that?"
In 2020, Credit Suisse analyst Brian Russ estimated that 15% of Stern's listeners could cancel their SiriusXM subscriptions if he left the company, which at the time meant "a potential subscriber loss of 2.7 million." His contract has always been a source of speculation for media pundits...and himself. In a 2019 cover story for The Hollywood Reporter, he contemplated retirement: "I'm at a place now where I am trying to figure out how to spend the rest of my life, however long that might be," he said, though he ultimately cut a new deal that reduced his workload. His latest agreement seems set to achieve much the same goal.
Meanwhile, SiriusXM has been in the midst of belt-tightening, with the company targeting $200 million of annualized savings in 2025 and undergoing layoffs as part of that effort. The company has recently pointed to its better management of subscriber churn, but its subscriber numbers have slowly declined from around 34 million in 2020 to 33 million in the second quarter of 2025. However, SiriusXM executives had expressed a desire to keep him on the air, while noting the deal also had to "make sense." "He has a lot of fans on the platform," SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz told The Hollywood Reporter in October. "And I'm encouraged. I think we're going to get to the right place. It's really about: What does Howard want? What do we want? What do our listeners want? And I think something will come together."
