Thursday, September 11, 2025

CHARLIE KIRK, Radio Personality & Political Activist, 1993-2025

In a day when political figures are maligned by their opponents, people need to remember that they have families, too.

Charlie Kirk, a radio talk personality and political activist, was shot and killed at a speaking event in Utah on Wednesday, September 10th. Kirk was speaking at the Utah Valley University campus, and a sniper shot him right when he was addressing a question from a student about mass shootings.

Kirk was known for his political activism, and was well known and followed in US conservative circles. Being quite outspoken and opinionated, he was often a polarizing figure. He concentrated his efforts on getting out the conservative message to young people and college students, and was very effective at it, making him popular among conservatives, and very unpopular among liberal Americans.

But one thing that doesn't get mentioned much in the US news press is that Charlie Kirk was also a radio personality.

I first heard of Charlie Kirk when I was tuning around my AM radio at night, and I first heard his radio show on a local conservative station, probably some time in 2020, right after his radio show started. If I remember correctly, the station was KLFE 1590. a station owned by Salem Media Group. For the past 15-20 years, both KLFE, and its sister station KOL 1300, had a slew of talk shows come and go, with the shows moving to KOL after KLFE went Catholic about 2-3 years ago.

Charlie Kirk's show had been more or less a mainstay on KLFE during the night-time hours, often between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. When KLFE went Catholic, his show moved to KOL.

Kirk struck me as a quick-minded conservative, and he seemed to be very effective at debate. He seemed to take to radio naturally.

THE 2010's & Early 2020's -- THE NEXT WAVE OF TALK HOSTS
Kirk and a handful of other Millennial conservative influencers and speakers -- like Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Matt Walsh being the better known ones -- were not only on conservative radio stations nationwide, they also migrated with ease to the internet, adapting to the new medium with aplomb, and several of them started successful conservative podcasts.


 KLFE 1590 was a key 'second tier' conservative talk station in the 2010's and early 2020's, up until it flipped to Catholic Relevant Radio in August, 2022. Charlie Kirk was on KLFE, along with other up-and-coming conservative radio talkers over the latter half of the 2010's, until such programming was moved to KOL 1300 when KLFE went Catholic.

Here in Seattle, shows by these youthful GenX and Millennial radio conservatives were on several stations, with the stations changing as ownerships changed, while shows got added and dropped, and formats flipped over the years. KLFE 1590 had a few of these shows, including shows by younger talk influencers Steve Deace and Andy Dean. So did KTTH 770. When KLFE 1590 went Catholic, several of KLFE's conservative shows went to KOL 1300. Charlie Kirk's show was one of them.

Kirk, like the others -- Andy Dean, Steve Deace, Michael Knowles, Ben Shapiro, etc. -- struck me as a sort of 'next wave' of conservative talk hosts and personalities, ready to take over after the Boomer and older GenX hosts either retired or left the radio airwaves.

The younger conservative hosts' talk shows varied in success. Some, like Andy Dean and Steve Deace, seemed to disappear from the Seattle airwaves by the mid 2010's. But tuning around the AM band at night during the 2010's, you could hear a lot of these 'next wave' of talk hosts, Kirk included.


Progressive talkers had less success than conservative talkers, and -- unlike the conservative radio talk shows -- the progressives had no 'next wave' of liberal, radio talk hosts. The progressive talkers had no equivalents to Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro. Instead, the younger liberal talkers showed up on the internet only. 

On the other side of the political spectrum, progressive radio shows seemed to die out soon after Air America went defunct in the early 2010's, and any 'next wave' of progressive talkers eschewed radio, in favor of internet podcasts.

I remember listening nightly to KPTK 1090 in the early 2010's. KPTK (now a conservative talk station, KPTR) had a lively set of liberal talk hosts -- from Randi Rhodes to Ed Schultz and Mike Malloy. After the last few progressive talk stations folded or flipped to other formats, liberal and progressive commentators like David Pakman, TYT and Democracy Now! were found on the internet only. For some reason, progressive talk never had the same success that the conservative talk shows had.

The conservative talkers -- older and 'next wave' alike -- had more success and staying power on the radio airwaves, with Charlie Kirk being one of them.

'SCOTLAND THE BRAVE'
I last heard Kirk's show while tuning around at night a couple weeks ago, when Kirk's show -- which usually opened and closed with the bagpipe tune "Scotland The Brave" -- was playing. It was a radio broadcast of what sounded like a speaking event.

Now, of course, Mr. Kirk is gone, and the political scene in the US right now is in turmoil because of his assassination. The shooter / sniper, who apparently used a high powered, bolt-action rifle, is still at large as of my writing this, and there are numerous questions about this assassin, and the assassination, that need to be addressed and answered.

Any time that a major political figure is shot and/or killed -- regardless of their politics -- it is a dangerous time for America. Any perusal of social media after Kirk's death indicates this -- tempers are running high.

Democracy can only thrive if there is freedom of speech, and the tolerance of free speech that should go with it. Americans of all political persuasions need to remember this. At times like this, we need to remember the things we have in common, and concentrate on those things, over the things that may divide us.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Kirk's wife and two little kids. My family is all dead, so I at least have some semblance of great loss. When my father died in 1984, my mother started to get a mental illness. It was like someone had dumped a ton of boulders on my shoulders. Eventually my mother's illness was abated by a new medical drug, and for 30 years she led an active, fulfilling life -- but my dad's death was still devastating. I still miss him.

That said, I can not fathom what it must feel to be in Charlie's wife's and kid's shoes.  I hope that in some way they are able to overcome their pain, especially those two little kids.

Peace, folks.

C.C., September 11th, 2025.


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Tuesday, September 2, 2025

HOWARD STERN: the Shock Jock That Won't Go Away -- and what his new Sirius contract debacle says about Radio

The logo of SiriusXM, the Satellite Radio service which has been Howard Stern's radio home since 2006.
Howard Stern is one of the last holdouts from the 'Shock Jock' era that graced FM radio in the US during the late 1990's and 2000's. I never listened to Howard, but had workmates who listened to him every morning, even while working. Stern is hailed by many in the Radio business as one of the greats in Radio.

Recently, Stern's show, on the SiriusXM Satellite Radio network, has made the news. The Sun newspaper (out of the US), printed an article early in August, where an unnamed source said that Stern's show -- which has run on Sirius since 2006 -- would be dropped because of decreasing audience numbers, and because his show is reportedly losing money.

Here is a link to The Sun article that started the Stern 'cancelled show' controversy.:

Just this past week, however, some news outlets are reporting that Stern's show will indeed continue. And being that Stern is returning to his SiriusXM show after a vacation, it's certain he will quell the cancellation rumors while on the air.

QUESTIONABLE RELEVANCE IN A PODCAST WORLD
That said, the fact that there even is such talk about a possible cancellation of Stern's show is telling. Such talk would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. The cancellation of some night time TV talk shows, like Jimmy Kimmel -- which has had faltering viewership and, like Stern's radio show, Kimmel's show is high cost -- has made a lot of Radio and TV observers discuss the issues such 'legacy media' are having in today's podcast and streaming driven world. Legacy shows are losing listeners and viewers. Many are saying that the shows are starting to cost too much. The salaries in the contracts are not in line with the audience numbers.

Here is one of the articles discussing the Stern cancellation rumors, from the Yahoo! news aggregator (yeah, the link itself is long winded, but it's genuine -- goes straight to the article).:

Thanks to articles like these, throughout the first half of August, a lot of Radio industry fans and observers were speculating about Stern, wondering whether his show would truly be cancelled by Sirius, or whether his show was relevant anymore. There was also a lot of discussion about it on Stern fan social media. While the conclusion seemed to be that the cancellation rumors could have been a negotiating tactic put out by SiriusXM, many Stern fans seemed to think that Howard's day has come and gone.

I read lots of fan complaints about the declining quality of his radio show, and many former fans were disgruntled by Stern's political stances, especially during the Trump and Covid eras. One guy in a YouTube comment said "Howard said he wanted all his listeners who voted for Trump to go away. He got his wish."

It looks now like his show will continue, though, and he will probably be renewed. And if that's actually the case, I'm glad to hear Howard Stern's show is staying on the air. Even though Sirius is not Over-The-Air radio, it is Radio just the same, and if he can stay on the air, I say power to him.

UPDATE, September 4th.: 
The Hollywood Reporter stated today that SiriusXM and Stern are in negotiations, and SiriusXM believes Stern is important in their lineup. So it still appears Stern's show will probably remain on SiriusXM.

THE BIGGEST ISSUE IS THE NUMBERS, WHATEVER THEY ARE...
But that doesn't change the numbers. During many online discussions, and a few articles I read, and a couple podcasts I watched, Stern's listenership numbers were discussed, and what numbers were put out there weren't exactly encouraging.

Numbers like $100 million a year being paid out for a show that reportedly (and SiriusXM generally keeps such numbers to themselves) only has an average of 100,000 listeners a day. During Stern's heyday, when he was still on terrestrial Radio (in 60 cities across the US) he had 26 Million listeners.

When Stern first joined up with Sirius in 2006, it is reported that Sirius's numbers went up from 600K users to 6 million. That's how popular Howard Stern was at the time.

Here is a good article on Stern's ascendancy and the current predicament the show seems to be facing.:

Of course, the current 100K Stern show listener figure may be inaccurate. It comes from leaked information.

IF the number is actually in the ball park, however, all one has to do is just get a calculator and do the math. $100 Million a year for 100K listeners is $1,000 a listener, which is much higher than the full SiriusXM annual subscription price.

If terrestrial radio stations had to pay out $1K per listener, some of them would probably go broke. There are YouTube podcasters and probably some social media influencers that get better numbers. 

To see the numbers in a proper perspective, the top local Radio stations in my market, Seattle, average about 200K-300K listeners. In Radio parlance, it's called 'Cume'. Some stations with decent ratings have less total listeners than 200K-300K, because of the hours and time spent listening. When it comes to ratings and Radio, there are all sorts of numbers that get crunched differently.

That said, the number of listeners to Howard Stern's show -- IF the numbers that have been leaked are accurate at all -- may be less than your mid-ranging FM station in a major city like Seattle.

And, if the numbers are accurate, it's definitely a very large drop from 26 Million, over the air Radio listeners in 2005 to 100K Satellite listeners in 2025. And even if the 100K number is inaccurate, it's certain that in today's internet streaming universe, where podcasts increasingly rule, where Radio and TV are both losing audience to everything from streaming music to video games -- Stern's audience has numerous alternatives for entertainment. And they have definitely many more alternatives than they had in 2005.

The competition in the audio entertainment universe is almost infinite.

Even so, the latest news and rumors indicate that that with Stern being one of Sirius's big stars, apparently the satellite company sees a return for their continued investment. So -- at least as of September 2nd, the day of this article being published -- all is still well. Howard's still on the Satellite, SiriusXM is happy having him in their lineup, and all is back to normal again.

WHAT THIS ALL SAYS ABOUT THE RADIO BUSINESS TODAY
So, what does this controversy mean for Radio in general? 

Obviously, it's an indicator that Radio itself is changing, and it's a long, long way removed from the vital and fun industry that it was during Stern's heyday -- the 1990's and 2000's.


A banner from The Buzz FM's heyday in the early 2000's

Stern, and a handful of other 'shock jock' style, 'hot talk' hosts (the two Radio 'formats' or 'subgenres' sort of interloped), really gave Radio a boost during the 1990's and into the new Millennium. I listened to a few of these guys: Tom Leykis was entertaining, and had a large audience, considering that at the time he was on a small number of stations when compared to Howard Stern.

Phil Hendrie -- like Leykis, also based out of Los Angeles -- was more of a comedian than a 'shock talker', but his show was played on many of the same radio stations that Stern was on. Both of these shows (Leykis and Hendrie) played in Seattle on 'The Buzz', KQBZ-FM, 100.7. There was a local 'hot talk' guy on The Buzz, B.J. Shea, who I also sometimes listened to, during the mornings.

The Buzz, styled somewhat after Los Angeles's KLSX-FM, was one of several, similar hot talk or shock talk stations across the US, aiming at male audiences. The Buzz, launched in May 1999 (at the height of the Nu-Metal and Rap Rock era), featured Leykis and some other 'shock talkers', until the 'talk for guys' format was 'blown up' in November 2005. Some of these 'shock talk' stations had Stern in the mornings. Others had local Stern-wannabes or one of the other popular, syndicated morning 'shock talk' shows. 

Here's the Wiki on KQBZ 100.7, now a country station ('The Wolf').

The logo for Los Angeles's KLSX, a station that had a bunch of (mostly LA based) 'shock talk' shows, similar in style to Howard Stern's.

Los Angeles's KLSX, Tom Leykis's flagship station in the 2000's, didn't last too much longer than KQBZ. It was flipped to Top-40 in early 2009. Below is the link to an article on its demise. One could say that KLSX's lifetime mirrored the 'hot talk / shock talk' format in general. It was big, but didn't last long after the end of the first decade of the new Millennium.:

A lot of these 'shock talk' shows -- both local and national -- owed at least some of their notoriety to Howard Stern, who was the king of them all. They all had their schtick -- but Howard Stern set the initial template.

During the 90's and 00's, Stern was on the Seattle rocker KISW during the mornings. I either was asleep, or if I was on day shift, I was too busy working to tune into his show. The few times I was exposed to Stern's show was his 'E!' Cable TV show, which I saw at my mom and stepfather's house, as they had satellite TV, and 'E!' was one of the channels. I watched a few episodes of Stern's TV show (which was just his radio show with TV cameras), and I just couldn't get into the humor of it.

SPANKING A PORN STAR, LIVE ON MIKE
One show that stuck out particularly was when Stern interviewed a female porn star, and he had her lie over his knee as he spanked her through her tight leather trousers while she announced where her next live performance would be (I think she was touring the US as a dancer -- but I don't really remember).

I'm sure that having a porn star spanked hard, live on mike, made for interesting radio. Apparently Stern had a lot of shows that were edgy like that. During that era, there were other 'shock jocks' or 'shock talkers', who made names for themselves regionally and even nationally, and they often got their shows played in tens of rock or 'shock talk' FM stations across the US. Bubba The Love Sponge -- based out of Florida -- was one of them. Opie and Anthony, a shock talk duo based out of New York City, were hosts of another show that was big.

I remember reading about these shows' popularity in the Radio magazines and Radio press, being that the company I worked for had many of these periodicals on the main desk in the hallway for the music directors, consultants, and sound operations guys like me to read and look over.

THE 1990'S and 2000's -- A BOOM TIME FOR RADIO
Looking back, it was a boom time for Radio. Nu-Metal, Rap, and Rap rock were rocking the airwaves, Country music was still booming, pop music was hot and super-popular, and the talk/shock jock trend was keeping the talk side of Radio lively. 

Conservative and other talk radio was still vibrant. Regardless of one's political views about him or his conservative compatriots, Rush Limbaugh's show -- especially in the 1990's -- was lively talk radio. And he had numerous imitators (Ken Hamblin, Michael Reagan, Ollie North, etc.), all of whom were cashing in on the conservative talk craze. And on the other side of the political spectrum, Air America tried to cash in on the talk craze as well. Some of their liberal, 'hot political talk' style shows were pretty good.

In the 1990's and early 2000's it was hard to tune a radio dial on either AM or FM radio in the US and find boring programming.

And, in the still-heady days before the big Crash in 2008-2009, Radio was making decent money. More than twice as much as Radio makes today -- when accounting for inflation.

Today? 'Making decent money' is not so much the case. And is Radio programming interesting or exciting anymore? It's a good question.

And Howard Stern's slow decline as a relevant and popular Satellite Radio show is just another indicator of that. 

Ultimately, it's the numbers that count -- and any way you slice and dice it, the numbers are down. 

And that seems to be common industry wide. Even highly rated Radio stations aren't making the money -- nor do they have the same numbers of listeners -- that they had in 2006, when Stern went from FM terrestrial radio to Sirius.

I'm not sure how the overall numbers of Sirius/XM are holding up. I've read conflicting reports that they are either holding steady, or dropping slowly. Being that SiriusXM has a streaming service, I suppose that makes up for any loss in Satellite listening numbers.

In the early 2000's, Satellite Radio was the big new deal. Terrestrial Radio was afraid of both Sirius and XM, when both of those services were introduced. I remember it being discussed in the Radio press during that time.

It turned out that neither Sirius nor XM were going to kill terrestrial radio -- instead, that was left to internet streaming and a combination of other factors I go into in this article 'Who Killed Radio?' which you can see here.:


The article is lengthy, and a bit drawn out, but it describes, in detail, each of the factors that led to Radio's decline -- basically, a combination of advances in technology, demographic changes, bad laws, dicey economics (Crash of 2008-2009 anyone?), and bad decisions by many in the Radio and Recording industries.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, RIGHT?
I wish Howard Stern well. He's an icon, and anyone who worked in Radio during the 90's and 00's is aware that he really revved up morning talk radio and hot talk in general. 

I have the soundtrack CD to his early 2000's movie Private Parts. I got it because Type O Negative had a B-side that they made for that CD, their version of Pictures Of Matchstick Men (featuring Ozzy Osbourne on vocals). 

I still have the CD, just don't have a working CD player anymore to play it on. :-(


I miss those days.

Peace.
C.C., -- Tuesday a.m., September 2nd, 2025.




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