How Did Howard Stern Lose His Audience?

The fun thing about podcasting is you can say whatever you want and people will claim free speech. And that's true. But you're not free of consequences. And today, I heard something that I can't believe I heard.And it explains why Howard Stern has lost a huge amount of his audience.

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I am a huge Howard Stern fan, have been for decades. And it's not that he is one of the best. No, he is the best interviewer, period. Hands down.He gets stories out of a list, celebrities that nobody else will. And I've heard people talk about when you're on the show, you feel like you're just talking with one person.And in his heyday, when he was on regular radio, he was reaching 11 million people a day. He went to satellite radio, took a huge amount of his audience with him. But over the years, he's been a not as consistent. He's not daily anymore.In fact, his new contract has him down to one day a week, which is almost like, why not just retire?But it was about five years ago, in 2020, when Howard said something, because the one thing, if you really want to lose your audience, start talking politics.And that's not new to Howard, but there's politics where the Democrats kind of feel we need more government programs, and the Republicans feel, nope, we just need people to work harder. And I'm very generalizing there. And then there's the far right and the far left, because really, the first part is kind of what I grew up with.And when you go far left or far right, you're going to lose that middle. And Howard went far left. And then I really can't believe he said this.But after, apparently, Trump was elected on May 15, Howard told his audience this. And this is why I think he lost his audience, because they would do anything that he asked them to do. And, well, he said this.

I'm talking to you in the audience, the Trump voter who, you know, idolizes the guy. He despises you. I don't hate Donald. Donald's doing his thing.I hate you for voting for him, for not having an intelligence, not able to see what's going on with the coronavirus, not able to see what the Justice Department is doing. I hate you. I don't want you here.

And so the audience did exactly what he said. And a lot of people went and unsubscribed, which is a bummer, because this is going to.I hope not, but it's probably going to tarnish his image, which he was trying to clean up. Look, in the early years, he was talking to young males in. His humor was very. Pull my finger, that kind of thing. And I was laughing all the way.And then later, he kind of switched and started doing a list celebrity interviews. And this is where he really shined as an interviewer.Getting people to talk about things that they don't talk about on other channels and other shows. And it was amazing. But he also did something that I do not recommend. And look, I. There are politics, and there's, you know, kind of medium.You know, there's a little left and a little right. But when you go far left or far right, you're going to lose some people and then throw on top of it. You just blatantly say, I don't want you here.I hate you. Holy cow. So obviously, I don't think you would ever say that.And I'm still scratching my head because he always talked about how much he loved his audience. But if you want to watch your numbers drop, start talking about politics. And if you're like, Dave, but I do a political show, that's fine.Just realize that 50% of your audience, of the potential audience is going to hate you. And my goal here was just to remind you not to play it super safe. Be yourself.But also realize that you may say something that someone's not going to agree with. And if this is just Howard being Howard, well, I wouldn't blame him for that. He's a smart guy.He's very media savvy, and I honestly don't understand why he would say that, but he did. And be careful, because the microphone's on. And once you publish something, the Internet writes in ink.You can take down an episode, you can do all sorts of stuff, but somebody probably took a screenshot and somebody has that file on their phone. So be careful with what you say. Be yourself, voice your opinion, and be okay that not everybody's going to agree with it.But I would strongly recommend you never tell your audience that you hate them and you wish that they would tune out. Now, if you need help trying to shape your opinion, shape it.To find yourself to be comfortable behind the microphone, I can definitely help with that. Our website is schoolofpodcasting.com Use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a monthly quarterly or yearly subscription.And of course, that comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. So if you're a little worried about it, you can get your money back on Day 29. I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what I do.Been doing it for over 20 years and I can't wait to see what we're going to do together because I want to be your podcast consultant.