Celebrity Mound

Howard Stern and his agent are suing Sirius XM Radio Inc. for failing to pay stock awards they say are due for helping it exceed subscriber growth targets on its way to becoming the dominant satellite radio service in the country.

The New York-based company, which just signed Stern to a second five-year contract, said it was “surprised and disappointed” at the suit and said it had lived up to the obligations of their previous deal.

In the suit filed Tuesday in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Stern’s production company, One Twelve Inc., and his agent Don Buchwald said that Sirius made an initial bonus stock award after Stern started in January 2006 but failed to do so over the subsequent four years.

The suit claims that Stern helped Sirius exceed its subscriber targets by at least 2 million subscribers in each year of the contract, triggering a new stock award each time.

It also said Stern put Sirius in a position to complete its 2008 acquisition of XM Satellite Radio Inc., which had also courted Stern years earlier.

Sirius had around 230,000 subscribers to XM’s 1.3 million at the end of 2003. As of the end of December, the combined company had 20.2 million.

Buchwald and Stern were told last year by Sirius XM’s general counsel, Richard Basch, that later bonus stock awards were not granted because the company did not include XM’s subscriber base toward the total number of Sirius subscribers.

“When Sirius needed Stern, it promised him a share in any success that the company achieved,” the suit said. “But now that Sirius has conquered its chief competitor and acquired more than 20 million subscribers, it has reneged on its commitment to Stern, unilaterally deciding that it has paid him enough.”

The suit follows a public feud last year that preceded the end of his $500 million, five-year contract.

The bickering appeared to end when Stern, 57, announced on his weekday morning show in December that he had agreed to a new deal running through 2015, although terms were not disclosed.

Stern, whose show airs from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time Monday through Thursday, freed himself from the confines of terrestrial radio on Dec. 16, 2005, after hosting a wildly popular show syndicated by a division of CBS Corp.

Sirius shares fell 6 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $1.65 in after-hours trading Tuesday after closing the regular session off a penny at $1.71.

After all his threats to leave, and others’ speculation on where he might go, Howard Stern is staying put at Sirius XM.

The loose-lipped shock jock announced on his show Thursday that he has signed a new five-year contract with the satellite radio company.

The deal, which runs through the end of 2015, provides that Sirius XM can now transmit Stern’s show to mobile devices. No other terms will be disclosed, the company said.

Stern had been locked for months in stormy negotiations as his original five-year contract with Sirius radio, worth a breathtaking $500 million, neared its expiration just days from now. Sirius and then-rival XM radio merged in 2008.

Growing doubts from observers that Stern would stay had fueled a guessing game of where the self-proclaimed “King of All Media” might land: to Internet radio, premium cable TV, even back to terrestrial radio, where he once reigned while clashing with federal regulators over his sometimes raunchy content.

Earlier this week on his show, he vowed in typically salty (and uncensored) fashion that he would not accept a pay cut if he stayed at Sirius XM. But Stern remains the company’s biggest marquee name and customer draw among its more than 135 channels of commercial-free music and talk.

“On my first day in satellite radio Sirius had approximately 600,000 subscribers. Today, the two companies have 20 million, and, in my view, we have just scratched the surface of how many people will get on board,” Stern, 56, said in a statement.

“Howard forever changed radio and was instrumental in putting Sirius on the map when he first launched on satellite radio,” said Mel Karmazin, chief executive officer of Sirius XM. “He is one of the few ‘one-name’ entertainers in the country and our 20 million subscribers are lucky to have him.”

Stern, whose show airs from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. EST Monday through Thursday, freed himself from the confines of terrestrial radio on Dec. 16, 2005, after hosting a wildly popular show syndicated by a division of CBS Corp.

He had frequently tested and sparred with the regulatory FCC during his 25-year run on the public airwaves, often having his morning show bleeped by censors, much to his ire.

“I don’t compete on terrestrial radio anymore,” said a grateful Stern on his first Sirius broadcast, on Jan. 9, 2006. “It’s so over.”

Howard K. Stern has asked a judge to dismiss his conviction for obtaining prescription drugs under a false name for his former lover, the late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.

If dismissal is refused, Stern sought a new trial or reduction of his two convictions to misdemeanors. He was acquitted of seven charges and the judge dismissed two others.

Stern maintains that using false names on prescriptions to protect a celebrity’s privacy is a common practice in Los Angeles.

His lawyer J. Christopher Smith said in a motion filed Tuesday that Stern believed it was legal for Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, a co-defendant, to prescribe medication to Smith using Stern’s name.

Stern and Eroshevich are scheduled for sentencing Jan. 6. Smith died of a drug overdose in 2007 but the defendants were not charged in her death.