Sirius XM has stated that its programing costs would continue to fall year-over-year, and Wall Street is hoping Stern will receive less under the new deal.

Crockett estimates that Stern will get $80 million a year in cash, the same amount he makes now, but not the $100 million in stock over five years that he had previously received.

With no news on his contract renewal status looming, Howard Stern did share with a caller this morning (11/30) that he “has a plan for the future of this company” and where he wants to take the show if he were to re-sign with Sirius XM after his contract expires on December 17.

If I had to guess, Stern is going to start his own web radio company and try to become the person that takes the platform to the next level. He needs a challenge at this point in his career to stay interested and that seems like a good one that gives him enough flexibility to do whatever he wants. He’d be wise to look at what Leo Laporte has done.

Howard’s on 24/7 on Sirius.  And they replay the best segments on Friday.  But if you miss it, you miss it forever.  That’s radio.  And sitting in traffic listening to Howard interview Billy was pure heaven, I didn’t want to get out.

You know how these interviews usually go.  You’ve got a sycophantic celebrity or a good-looking talking head who wants to be a celebrity serving up softballs to a legend who doesn’t want to be there, who doesn’t reveal anything truly private, truly inside.

But this was like going over to Billy’s house and sitting in the living room, asking him the questions that had rolled around in your head for years, not for ratings, but because you truly wanted to know the answers.

I was glued to my radio listening to this. Between Jay-Z and this, Stern is (possibly) leaving satellite radio riding a wave of some pretty incredible interviews. You can listen to the Billy Joel interview using the links at the end of the Lefsetz review.

Rumor is that Stern will start his own web based radio station when his Sirius/XM contract ends in a matter of days.

Jay Z was on the Howard Stern Show this morning talking about his new, arty book. “I collect art … I got into art recently about 3 or 4 years ago … I got a couple (of Warhols),” said Jay Z. Apparently the famous rapper had the Warhol Rorschach over his fire place in his living room. I’m fairly sure no one ever opened an interview with jay Z on his art collection. Such is the genius of Howard Stern as an interviewer. It was a rather remarkable interview.

Earlier this week, Howard recalled and compared his meetings with XM and Sirius back when both were courting him. These meetings went down while the curtain slowly closed on Howard’s long tenure in terrestrial radio. XM bragged about having more subscribers, having more repeaters on the ground, yada yada, while Sirius asked him what it would take, and then took it. Once on Sirius, Howard rocketed the company past XM in the satellite radio marketplace, and Sirius eventually bought XM. To sum it up, Howard was the star satellite radio needed to establish itself as a medium.

Now Internet radio needs the same thing. It’s time for Howard to make his move. But it doesn’t have to be entirely away from Sirius XM. The two can be bridged. In fact, they need to be — at least for Sirius XM to survive in the long run.