Howard Stern just pulled off one of the biggest media pranks of the year, and the country’s so-called “serious” reporters fell for it hook, line, and sinker. 

For anyone who tuned in to SiriusXM early Monday morning, it appeared that Stern had finally decided to walk away from the microphone after decades on the air. At 7 a.m., listeners didn’t get Stern. Instead, Bravo’s Andy Cohen came on the air, introduced himself as the new voice of what was suddenly called “Andy 100,” and let the rumors fly. With no small irony, Cohen even admitted he was “essentially improvising” while the press and Wall Street rushed to conclusions.  

Within minutes, major outlets like CNBC, Variety, and the Associated Press were breathlessly reporting that Stern had left SiriusXM. 

“We've got some breaking news for you this morning,” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported. “Howard Stern, officially splitting with Sirius XM after nearly 20 years. He had teased an announcement about the future on September 2nd's episode. That was then postponed until today, but when the show started this morning, Andy Cohen introduced himself and said, the channel will now be known as Andy 100. Cohen said the handoff was meant to be cleaner, and this morning's announcement wasn't how things were supposed to go. He said he's confident that Howard Stern will land on another platform soon, and we're going to try to dig into what's exactly happened here.”

“I mean, he was there when Sirius really took off,” anchor Betty Quick noted. “That was the thing that they built everything around. On him leaving Terrestrial Radio and going to that, it got a lot of people to actually subscribe in the very early days. Now, just last week, Scott Greenstein, who's the president and chief content officer at SiriusXM, was speaking at a Bank of America conference. He said that he wanted Stern to stay at Sirius but that the deal would have to make sense so he said for all these years and right now as it is it is as important a content single piece of content as we've ever had makes you think you know there was speculation the time it would mean he would have a big pay cut makes you thinks that something broke down and how they would get some price.”

"Howard Stern, the popular radio host who gave a massive boost to the nascent satellite radio business when he signed a blockbuster, multimillion-dollar contract for SiriusXM almost two decades ago, has abruptly left the company," the Associated Press reported Monday morning, before the prank was revealed. The AP has since updated the story to reflect the fact that it was a hoax.

There have been persistent reports that Howard Stern’s show is teetering on the brink of cancellation. Last month, news broke that his five-year, $500 million contract is set to expire this year, and Stern has reportedly been entertaining the idea of “parting ways” with SiriusXM. Much of the uncertainty surrounding his future stems from the catastrophic collapse of his once-mighty audience. 

The New York Post noted that Stern’s show no longer commands the massive listenership it once did. His daily audience, which once hovered around 20 million, has plunged to a mere 125,000 in recent weeks, a staggering fall from grace.

I have no love for Howard Stern, but I appreciate a good prank when I see one. And Stern’s prank is a perfect metaphor for media laziness: repeat the hype without checking the facts. As Stern’s contract drama unfolds, only PJ Media remains relentless in exposing the real stories they want buried. Join PJ Media VIP with the code FIGHT, get 60% off, and gain access to exclusive content and commenting privileges. Support fearless conservative journalism that puts America First. Don’t let fake news fool you — join now!