Howard Stern

• Born: January 12, 1954
• Place of Birth: Jackson Heights, Queens, New York

Radio personality and comedian

A controversial radio personality, Stern became famous on the airwaves for his outrageous commentary and for his profanity, sexual references, and vulgarities.

Area of achievement: Entertainment

Early Life

Howard Stern was born to Ben and Ray Stern, both children of Austro-Hungarian immigrants. Howard Stern developed an interest in radio at a young age, thanks to his father’s job as a radio engineer at WHOM (later WKTU) in New York. A natural comedian, Stern was inspired by such television shows as The Howdy Doody Show, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Captain Kangaroo. His early entertainment involved “dirty” puppet shows performed for friends and family. As a teenager, he also formed a band called the Electric Comic Book.

Stern attended Roosevelt High School in Long Island, where his family moved when he was a young boy. After graduation, he enrolled at the Boston University School of Communications. Stern first appeared on the radio for the Boston University radio station. After college, he got his first professional radio job working as a progressive-rock disc jockey at WNTN AM in Boston. Throughout the first ten years of his broadcasting career, Stern moved from station to station, spending time at WCCC in Hartford, Connecticut; DC-101 FM in Washington, DC; and WNBC in New York.

Life’s Work

In 1985, Stern was fired from his position at WNBC because of pressure from the station’s parent company, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The termination came after several suspensions as a result of Stern’s failure to follow company guidelines for on-air personnel. Stern’s unemployment did not last long because he was offered a new position at WXRK, a New York radio station owned by the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, just a month later. At WXRK, Stern worked the afternoon-drive shift, and because of the success of his show, he was later switched to the morning shift. Stern’s employment at WXRK marked the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between Stern and the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation. In 1986, Stern’s show was being simulcast on the Infinity-owned classic-rock station in Philadelphia, WYSP.

By the time Stern became employed by WXRK, he had already gained a reputation as a “shock jock,” and his show was beginning to attract both attention and criticism. His program, which combined profanity, sexual references, and vulgarities, became a source of irritation for many people.

In 1986, Stern’s show was targeted in a religious campaign launched by Rev. Donald Wildmon, who declared Stern’s show “indecent” and demanded that the show be taken off the air. Wildmon took his complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which maintains a strict policy regarding the times at which material labeled “indecent” can be broadcast. According to the commission, “indecent” material can be broadcast only during the time when there is limited access for children, that is, early in the morning or late in the evening.

In response to this complaint, the FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability to Infinity, warning the company that it needed to bring Stern’s broadcast under control or face fines. This notice marked the first of a long series of fines issued to Infinity and to the independent stations that carried Stern’s show. In 1992, KLSX in Los Angeles was levied a fine of $105,000 for indecency on Stern’s show, the first station not owned by Infinity to be fined. The fines related to Stern’s show totaled $1.7 million by 1995, at which time the FCC and Infinity reached an agreement, and a “voluntary contribution” of $1.7 million was made to the US Treasury.

In 1997, the feature film, Private Parts, was released based on Stern's book by the same title. CBS/Westinghouse purchased Infinity and Stern’s show in 1996. Despite the show’s popularity in the thirty-nine cities where it was sold, expansion of the show was slow because of concerns about high costs and controversial issues. In 2004, Stern signed a lucrative contract with Sirius Satellite Radio to begin a show in 2006. Unfettered by FCC regulations at Sirius, Stern continued his freewheeling and provocative commentary. He remained so popular that Sirius offered him another five-year contract in 2010, which Stern accepted.

While continuing his Sirius show, in 2012, Stern additionally took on a new role as a judge on the reality talent competition show America's Got Talent, which aired on NBC. While NBC's choice to replace Piers Morgan with Stern was considered a surprising move for both the network and Stern, he remained on the show for four seasons until 2015. In the same year that he left the show, he signed another contract renewal with Sirius. His third book, Howard Stern Comes Again (2019), which presents and comments upon a number of interviews he had conducted over his career, was his first new book published in over twenty years. When he received criticism in 2020 over a performance he had given in an earlier television sketch considered racially offensive, he addressed the issue on his Sirius program and stated that his comedy had evolved. In 2020, Stern renewed his contract with Sirius for an additional five years.

After a brief hiatus from his Sirius radio show, Stern announced in January 2024 that he had taken the break because he had contracted COVID-19. Stern, being a well-known germaphobe, had gone through most of the pandemic in complete isolation, and this was his first time contracting the virus. In April, he interviewed President Joe Biden, who indicated he would debate former president Donald Trump later that year.

Significance

Despite continued controversy, Stern’s show maintained widespread popularity. Because of its continued popularity, Stern’s radio program moved to television in 1998, but the show was later canceled because of its controversial content. Although he has long been plagued by criticism over his controversial show, Stern still has a strong network of fans, and he has proclaimed himself the “King of All Media.”

Bibliography

Abdul-Hakim, Gabriella. "In Howard Stern Interview, Biden Says He's 'Happy' to Debate Trump." ABC News, 26 Apr. 2024, abcnews.go.com/Politics/howard-stern-interview-biden-happy-debate-trump/story?id=109695601. Accessed 1 Sept. 2024.

Colford, Paul D. Howard Stern, King of All Media: The Unauthorized Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Greene, Andy. "A Softer Side of Howard Stern." Rolling Stone, 22 May 2019, www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/howard-stern-interview-new-book-836979/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2020.

Hoberman, J., and Jeffrey Shandler. Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Lackmann, Ronald W., ed. Same Time . . . Same Station: An A-Z Guide to Radio from Jack Benny to Howard Stern. New York: Facts On File, 1996.

“SiriusXM, Howard Stern Sign Five-Year Contract Extension.” AP News, 8 Dec. 2020, apnews.com/article/business-howard-stern-069543aecfefa432aa1c10a01f6ecc8e. Accessed 19 Apr. 2023.

Stern, Howard. Private Parts. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Stern, Howard. Miss America. New York: Regan, 1995.