Alright, all you non-GenXers, I’m about to Boomer-splain something, so gather ‘round. Howard Stern, whose new show will be streaming on HBO Max as part of the 2026 TV schedule, is a big deal for good reason. It might not be obvious to anyone under 40, so I’m here to get into why those in Generation X like me still think of him as the “King of All Media,” despite not being very culturally relevant for at least a decade (and maybe more). Let me tell you, in the ‘90s, he was everywhere, and he was as culturally relevant as the cast of Friends. So turn down your radio and let’s get into it.
Howard Called Himself The King For A Reason
You probably know that Howard Stern is a radio host on satellite radio. You might even know that he had a hit movie in the 1990s with 1997’s Private Parts (and its stacked cast). He calls himself the “King of All Media,” because in the ‘90s, he was the most popular morning radio host in America, and he had a hit movie, yes, but he also had two New York Times bestsellers (Private Parts in 1993 and Miss America in 1995) and a wildly popular daily TV show on E! called simply Howard Stern, (which was best-of snippets from his morning radio show). This was all years before he hosted America's Got Talent.
Of course, the self-bestowed title was partly in jest, but Howard wasn’t wrong when he said he was on top of the mountain across media types. Hell, even the soundtrack to Private Parts went to #1 on the Billboard charts. Not only were his books, movies, and shows on top, but because of his constant battles with the FCC (not to mention his legendary celebrity interviews), he was in the news almost every day, it seemed like. In the mid-to-late ‘90s, there really wasn’t a bigger star in America.
He’s Returning To TV, But It’s Not The Same
I don’t know when I first heard about Howard Stern and his merry band of idiots, but when I was in high school in the early ‘90s, his show wasn’t on where I lived. When I got to college in Boston, though, his morning show was rebroadcast for the afternoon drive time on one of the radio stations there. That’s when I really started listening to him, and by the time The Howard Stern Radio Show hit E! in 1998, I was already a big fan.
The show ended when he made the move to Sirius (now SiriusXM) in 2005, but it was recently announced that he is returning to cable TV (sort of) with The Howard Stern Show on HBO Max. Ok, it’s streaming, not cable, but you get the point. I blame Gary. The show kicks off on September 17th and will drop weekly on Thursday nights. I’ll admit that I haven’t listened much to Howard in the last decade or so, but I’ll definitely be using my HBO Max subscription to tune in to the new show, and hopefully it recaptures some of that old glory I used to love so much.
Long Live The King of All Media!
