September to Remember for Howard Stern

Many conspiracy theorists were worried about ominous events happening in September and although none of these led to the demise of the Western world (shocker), it was not a good month for 61 year old radio host Howard Stern.  Some of the Stern-related highlights/lowlights of the month included:

Hitting It Out of the Park on Sirius/XM

Rebel radio was back on Sirius/XM for a whopping nine shows during the month of September.  The show had 12 guests during the month, including one who was over 80 years old (Carol Burnett).  Guest demographics looked like this:

  One straight man - Adam Carolla
  Two gay men - Neil Patrick Harris and Andy Cohen
  Nine women - Julie Chen, Sharon Osbourne, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett, Jewel, Pamela Anderson, Beverly Johnson, Cindy Crawford and Emily Blunt

It is a joke to see out of touch media types describe Stern as a "shock jock" in 2015 when he trots out a lineup of guests like this, which makes the Stern channels look like the satellite radio love child of the View and Sirius/XM's OutQ channel.

End of the Line for America's Judge

Howard ended his 4 year run as a judge on America's Got Talent last month, but he didn't exactly leave on a high note.

The rating in the key demo for the finale was the lowest in AGT history and overall, the season had its worst ratings ever.  The show will be moving back to Los Angeles next year and it will be interesting to see whether ratings improve without the power of Stern.

At least AGT made Howard a a tribute video and fans also learned of another of Howard's long list of inventions in his crazy skit with a bunch of kids:



Radar Online, Artie and Marci Turk

In August, a Page Six article in the New York Post mentioned how Stern channels' COO Marci Turk was behind the now-PC image of Howard and the show (although some are more inclined to believe Stern is the reason for his own "evolution" and Marci is just a minion who helps him get things done on the channels).

Artie Lange and John Melendez spoke about this on Artie's podcast and Artie joked about only being able to see Howard if he was tending bar at Jennifer Aniston's next wedding or if he went to a meeting of the Ellen DeGeneres fan club.  This got Stern to discuss their takes on his radio show, subsequent podcast discussions by Artie and a series of stories by Adam Levy on Radar Online, including articles on September 16, September 29, and September 30.

This exchange fueled lots of discussion on social media about Howard's treatment of Artie after his stint on the show ended and more talk about Marci Turk.  Although Howard acknowledged Marci Turk for her work on the amazing birthday bash in 2014, he has not wanted to discuss her too much on his radio show and dropped regular caller Hanzi after he mentioned the life coach turned COO of the Stern channels.

Eventually, Artie tried to downplay any tension with Howard and went so far as to say that Stern is still doing great radio in 2015

Guys I will talk about Howard's Show today on podcast. It's simple if u hear Howard's voice ur hearing the best radio there is always.

— Artie Lange (@artiequitter) September 28, 2015

Whalerock Industries - Kardashian App Downloads Dropping

Earlier this year Whalerock Industries announced that it was going to be developing digital media hubs for Howard Stern as well as other celebrities.

The Kardashian sisters rolled out their Whalerock apps earlier this month, and while they were initially making all kinds of subscriber gains during the initial free seven day trial period, that buzz died down pretty quickly.

According to the Tech Crunch article mentioned above, "unfortunately for the celeb sisters, when the media buzz wore off, so did their App Store downloads. And that means revenue projections have been dropping as well.

Kim and Khloé’s apps were tanking by Tuesday, September 23rd as the paid service kicked off. Kylie’s app hung onto a spot in the top 50 for a time, however.

But by Sunday, September 27th, the decline continued. Kylie’s app is now on its way out of the top 200 Overall, at No. 172.

Apparently many subscribers downloaded the Kardashian apps during the initial free trial, but very few were converted into paying subscribers and downloads were down."

Although the Kardashians are annoying, they are more popular than Stern, so this initial report isn't a good sign for Howard's Whalerock app - HowardTV failed in 2013 and one can't imagine many people signing up to pay for a few long, painful interviews by Stern each month and stale replays of bits that have been repeated on satellite many times.

Kittens, Kittens and More Kittens

As refugees flood across the borders of European countries, Howard has a continuing crisis of his own - another month of cats from the North Shore Animal League invading his mansion in the Hamptons.

Last month, Beth Stern, with plenty of free time on her hands, posted pictures of 10 new cats that the Sterns are fostering in their Southampton crib and 3 of them are vision-impaired (which seems to be Beth's new thing as she readies her social media fans for the new book about a blind cat):

Yogi
Cucumber
Raisin
Potato
Maggie
Rainbow one-eyed 7 year old cat
Milly needs to see eye specialist
Donut
Otter
Wilson (blind)

Fans are still waiting to see if Howard will re-sign with Sirius/XM after his contract expires this year or move on to some other unknown venture - the only things people know for sure is that there are less than 30 live Stern shows for the rest of 2015 and that Beth Stern will go on a media blitz once her new cat book is released in December.  Good times!