stern fell off ever since he got married and moved to sirius.
his glory years were in the 90s and early 2000s.
when he was on e, every show was a pretty much a classic imo. its cool to listen to him on sirius and see what he is up to every once in awhile.
E was usually just the 30 best minutes of any given day's 4-6 hour show, so it was always good.
I think the show was better on terrestrial than on satellite for a couple reasons:
1) Howard never ran the show and always had a ton of enemies (bosses, general managers, radio executives, competing DJs.)
2) Free listeners = More listeners/callers. A lot of the show came from listener contributions like song parodies they sent in, contests both in-studio and over the phone, people calling in live, voicemails, stuff like that...
Fred Quits the Show came from a listener calling in that spotted them at the Rainbow Room.
Sirius has had some great moments, even some that are among the best moments in show history, but way more of the show is driven by Howard and the staff so it drags on a lot and is way less spontaneous.
He's changed a lot over the years (wife, animals, etc.) but I think the show would have been better had he stayed on terrestrial. It would have declined but I don't think it would have as rapidly... and now it's really suffering without someone in the Jackie/Artie chair.