Andy Cohen plans to interview Howard Stern this week, as contract negotiations at SiriusXM continue.
The interview with Stern and Cohen, who is also part of the SiriusXM family, comes after months of speculation about Stern’s contract at the satellite radio empire and the impact on the company if he leaves. Speaking at an event for advertisers in New York on Monday, SiriusXM executives say they are interested in keeping Stern, while showing off its full bench of talent in podcasting and radio, including Cohen, Alex Cooper and more.
“He has a lot of fans on the platform. And I’m encouraged. I think we’re going to get to the right place,” said Jennifer Witz, CEO of Siriusxm Thr by Stern. “And it’s really about what Howard wants? What do we want? What do our listeners want? And I think something will come together.”
For his part, Cohen, who has his own radio empire at SiriusXM and recently made listeners of Stern’s show by taking over his show, calls Stern an “inspiration” for his own career and said he plans to ask a range of hard-hitting questions. The interview is scheduled to take place on Tuesday and Air Friday on Radio Andy.
“I want to explain to him why he’s such a recluse. He’s approaching Howard Hughes levels, and I want to try to get him out of the house,” Cohen said. “I want to talk to him about his contract. I want to talk to him about politics.”
“He’s someone who always goes there, and so do I,” he added.
While Witz called Stern a “core” part of SiriusXM, the company has also been developing its next generation of talent by positioning itself as a talent-friendly destination that will help creators build their brands and introduce a new all-star roster.
“We take growing voices, try to make them stars, and then we give the stars the platform to build their own empires,” Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM president and chief content officer, said on stage at the event.
At the Upfront event, SiriusXM played videos from talent including Cooper and Conan O’Brien, who both have major podcast networks there; as well as Stephen A. Smith, who recently signed on for two radio shows; Trevor Noah; THE Without intelligence podcast hosts; And Cooper, one of the biggest podcasters on his show, Call his daddy, as well as its Unwell podcast network. Cooper was seen as a key asset to the company because of her large listening base, which appeals to advertisers and helps the company’s demographics.
“We own Gen-Z women,” Cooper said of her podcasting network on stage Monday. “What we’re looking for is to fill every category.” She then went on to list her network’s podcasts in beauty, conversation and therapy with possible expansion into sports.
As was the case with Stern, Cohen and several members of SiriusXM’s Talent Slate say they are attracted to the company because of the creative freedom they are given on the platform.
“They are incredibly focused on freedom of expression and creativity and letting me do what I want to do. They don’t give me notes saying “you can’t do this.” It’s really just, “How do we get there? It’s a pretty amazing thing to have a blank slate, especially in 2025, the media landscape as it is,” said Cohen, who recently resigned with SiriusXM after ten years with the company and has a slate of shows on his radio channel, Radio Andy, as well as his own daily show.
Podcasting in particular has proven to be a big driver for the company in terms of ad revenue, with Witz saying the company leads industry monetization in terms of revenue per download. SiriusXM currently has deals with half of the top 20 podcasts, according to Edison Research, but Witz said there could still be room for more, particularly when it comes to certain niches attractive to advertisers.
“We’re not really thinking, let’s get half of the top 20,” Witz said. “It’s more about those who are growing and building audiences and moving up, or adapting to a certain demographic or content type.”
“I mean, everyone’s calling, everyone wants to look and see what’s out there. And I think we have a lot of flexibility because of the way we’ve been able to monetize, and the idea that, I think we’re very creator-friendly,” she added. “But we’re not going to make a deal for the sake of making a deal.”
While podcasting has been on the rise, Witz said the “car is still at the heart” of SiriusXM in terms of its satellite business. However, the subscriber base has slowly shrunk over the past few years to land just under 33 million, and there are fears that if Stern were to leave, he would take away a swathe of listeners.
The company brought under-duty churn down to about 1.5% to 1.6%, and Witz said it saw more opportunities to bring in even more by exposing customers indulging in free trials to more of SiriusXM’s content and learning more about their listening habits. Greenstein also floated the idea of converting listeners of popular podcasters into subscribers, in one form or another.
“Alex Cooper’s music channel on Sirius is doing very well, and that’s obviously geared towards a younger audience. So we’re going to see where that calibration is and start to see where something might be younger, but yet ripe for subscription. And while we wait for that, we’re going to continue to monetize much younger content in the podcast market,” Greenfield said in July.
The current goal is to stabilize the subscriber base, then Witz also sees the potential for more satellite growth.
“I still think we have more opportunities to bring listeners to Sirius XM from AMFM and the car,” Witz said.
She added: “35 to 50 (years) is still a big opportunity for us because we had started the service 20 years ago. And so we have a lot of subscribers, rich subscribers, 45 and over, but at 35 to 45 or 50, we still have a lot more opportunities.”
