Howard Stern
Howard Stern is an American satellite radio personality, notable for his crude humor. He is often referred to as a "shock jock" due to his use of shocking or unorthodox content as a promotional draw.
He is best-known for his national radio show, which for many years was syndicated on FM radio stations (and a few AM stations) throughout the United States until his last broadcast via terrestrial radio on December 16, 2005. After a brief hiatus, he began broadcasting via the subscription-based Sirius satellite radio service on January 9, 2006. Although Stern had a weekly audience of more than 10 when on terrestrial radio, on satellite Stern's audience is only in the 3 million range.
Stern's show often has such guests as strippers, litte people, pornography actors, regular actors, musicians and comedians. Some of the more unorthodox topics of the Stern show include details of homosexual practices, and talking or trying to talk female guests into disrobing, and of course constant flatulence jokes.
Howard Stern divorced his wife Allison in 1998 and recently became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Beth Ostrosky, who is 19 years younger than him.
Although raised Jewish, Stern is a militant atheist. Stern and his staff often mock religion and the show is widely considered inappropriate for children, due to inappropriate content (both related to religion and not).
Stern's shows have also featured political commentary. Although Stern used to be a self-proclaimed libertarian, in recent years he has abandoned that philosophy and embraced positions that are in direct opposition to libertarian ideology, such as government regulation of corporations, radical environmentalism, gun control, income redistribution through higher taxation, and government funding for abortion and embryonic stem cell research that involves the killing and cloning of human embryos. He also considers Ralph Nader to be one of his heroes. He is also a supporter of Michael Moore and was very vocal in his endorsement of Moore's propaganda filmed that was released in June of 2004. Moore was even a guest on Stern's show the week of the film's release and called into the show a day before the 2004 Election. Stern is now considered by many conservatives, libertarians, and moderates/centrists to represent the far-left of the political spectrum.
During a week vacation in February of 2004 he had read Al Franken's anti-Bush book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. He told his listeners "If you read this book, you will never vote for George W. Bush. I think this guy is a religious fanatic and a Jesus freak, and he is just hell-bent on getting some sort of bizzaro agenda through -- like a country-club agenda -- so that his father will finally be proud of him ... I don't know much about Kerry, but I think I'm one of those 'Anybody but Bush' guys now. I don't think G.W. is going to win. What do you think about that?"
On July 25, 2006 Stern launched into a tirade against Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. He attacked Lieberman's past support of indecency laws and his current support of the War on Terror [1]. In February of 2007, Stern announced on his radio show that he is supporting Senator Hillary Clinton for president.
On February 25, 2004, Clear Channel Communications "indefinitely suspended" him from six markets because of indecency involving sexual and racist dialogue during his show. The show in question featured Rick Salomon, whose claims to fame include a publicly released home video showing him having sex with heiress Paris Hilton. During this broadcast Stern held a sexually-provocative and racially insensitive interview with Saloman, asking him graphic questions about anal sex and making light of a caller's use of the word "nigger". Clear Channel president John Hogan said, "Clear Channel drew a line in the sand today with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content, and Howard Stern's show blew right through it...it was vulgar, offensive and insulting, not just to women and African-Americans but to anyone with a sense of common decency." Because some of Clear Channel's employees have donated money to the Republican Party, Stern claims the company was trying to penalize him for his harsh verbal attacks on President Bush.
Trivia
- Stern share the same birthday as Rush Limbaugh (January 12).
- Stern is 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) in height.
