Background By 1990, Stern had been the host of
his morning radio show on
WXRK in
New York City for almost four years, and was also simulcast on stations in
Philadelphia and
Washington, D.C. He had filmed a series of
pilots for
Fox in 1987 as a potential replacement for
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, but the network deemed the pilots boring and decided against picking it up. Stern went on to reach success in the
pay-per-view and home video markets with his
Negligee and Underpants Party and
U.S. Open Sores specials in 1988 and 1989, respectively. On April 24, 1990,
Secaucus, New Jersey–based television station
WWOR-TV announced its deal with Stern to produce a new Saturday night show on its station, beginning with four "specials" broadcast in the summer followed by a full-time weekly production schedule and national syndication. Bob Woodruff, then WWOR's vice president of program development, approached Stern in 1989 after he had watched him on
Late Show with David Letterman and listened to the radio show and thought its "best elements" would translate well on-screen. Stern promoted the show with a press conference at WWOR-TV on July 2 and appearances on various talk shows.
Production Stern's deal with WWOR-TV included a $100,000 budget that covered all production costs and salaries. The first of the initial four episodes aired on July 14, 1990, as
The Howard Stern Summer Show. In October 1990, WWOR announced that it had renewed the show for another thirteen episodes, and that the program had been extended from 60 to 90 minutes from October 13. On January 10, 1991, the program entered national
syndication by
All American Television, with alternate content replacing the live commercial reads which aired on WWOR and were targeted to the New York City market exclusively. However, the WWOR feed of the program (including the aforementioned live commercials targeting New York) was still carried nationwide via cable by WWOR's
superstation feed, and no stations which aired the show in syndication are known to have exercised
syndication exclusivity against WWOR's superstation feed airing the show locally in their market via cable. On July 15, 1992, WWOR-TV announced that the show had been canceled. Despite media speculation that the decision was over content, the station clarified that it was a business decision as the costs to produce the show "exceeded the revenues even at its highest ratings". The station added that it became increasingly difficult to have the show syndicated to other stations across the country. During a press conference held on his radio show on July 28, Stern maintained that it was his decision to end the program, which was prompted by the station's refusal to provide the budget or resources to improve the show's production quality. He also claimed that WWOR's claim that they could not make enough money from the show was "an absolute lie", and that the network contacted him daily in an attempt to change his mind and continue. The final new episode aired on August 1, after which WWOR-TV aired repeats. In the New York market,
The Howard Stern Show often doubled the ratings share of
Saturday Night Live on
NBC during the half-hour the two programs overlapped. In
Los Angeles on
KCOP, the show managed to attract a 34.4%
market share at 12:30 a.m. in the male 18-49 demographic. By 1992,
Entertainment Weekly reported that, despite being carried in only about 60 percent of the country, it had become the fourth-most-popular syndicated series among men aged 18 to 49. The WWOR show featured outrageous segments including "Guess Who's the Jew" and "Lesbian Dating Game". A critic of the
Los Angeles Times described the show as "at once incredibly funny and incredibly vile". Reviewing the program in 1990, Howard Rosenberg of the
Los Angeles Times praised Melendez's celebrity ambush interviews as the source of the show's "moments of brilliant lunacy", while also criticizing the program's treatment of Melendez's stutter and Dell'Abate's appearance.
Entertainment Weekly later argued that the show's vulgarity was one of the reasons it became "one of the hottest on syndicated TV". The program also drew criticism from advocacy groups. In Los Angeles, the National Stuttering Project objected to the show's jokes about Melendez, with the group's media relations coordinator calling it "the worst kind of behavior". Melendez, however, defended the material and said he believed it made stuttering easier for some viewers to discuss openly. ==Format==