Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Report: Stern's New Deal Worth $90M Yearly

Howard Stern's fresh five-year deal with Sirius­XM includes a plan for the subscription radio giant to make an audacious push into video with Stern leading the charge.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but under his previous contract, Stern earned around $80 million annually. That figure is expected to rise to $90 million a year as the new deal also gives Sirius access to Stern’s show archives for 12 years, estimates The NY Post.

Stern, who announced the deal on-air Wednesday, also talked up his and the company’s multimedia future in a statement.

“So, if you are not listening to SiriusXM and ‘The Howard Stern Show,’ then you are really more like a zombie, a rotting corpse monster, living half a life, deadened and blackened inside,” he said. “It’s as if you were still watching black and white television while shopping in actual stores on your way to the post office to fax a memo.”

Wall Street cheered the new deal. Sirius, which is up 16 percent this year, rose 1.8 percent, to $4.07.

“His comments about the watching black and white TV are timely,” Amy Yong, entertainment analyst at Macquarie, told The Post. “Investors are focused on cord cutting and [media] dis-intermediation.”

SiriusXM has already been filming his show and is planning to create other content as it looks to expand its mobile entertainment credentials beyond the car.

“What’s opened our eyes is short-form video,” SiriusXM Chief Executive Jim Meyer told The Post. “It’s an area where there’s lots of activity and certainly lots of opportunities.”

With 30 million paying subscribers, the company is diversifying at a time when other audio giants are retooling for a broader audience. For instance, music-streaming service Spotify is planning to add video.

Sirius is also building SXM17, which will offer users the chance to select particular shows across channels.

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