Howard Stern
Howard Stern's fondness for naughty talk and frank scatology helped his morning radio show become a nationwide hit in the 1990s. Stern got started in radio while at Boston University, worked as a deejay in various cities, and finally settled into a morning talk format in New York City, where his explicit brand of low-brow humor found a wider audience via national syndication. His autobiography Private Parts was published in 1993, followed by the 1995 book Miss America. Stern played himself in a feature film version of Private Parts in 1998. His widespread successes led to his self-proclaimed nickname of "King of All Media." Stern's controversial subject matter also led to multiple run-ins with the Federal Communications Commission, which has fined Stern and his corporate parents on several occasions. In 2004 he announced that he had signed a five-year, $500 million contract to take his radio show to Sirius Satellite Radio, a subscription-only network where he would be unaffected by FCC regulations. His final show on "terrestrial" broadcast radio was 16 December 2005, and his first Sirius show aired on 9 January 2006.
Extra credit: Regulars on Stern's show have included news sidekick Robin Quivers, "Stuttering John" Melendez, producer Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate and Hank Nasiff (known as Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf); Nasiff died in 2001, and Melendez became Jay Leno's announcer on The Tonight Show in 2004... Stern married the former Alison Berns in 1978; the couple separated in 1999 and divorced in 2001. They have three daughters: Emily (b. 1984), Deborah (b. 1987) and Ashley Jade (b. 1993)... He married model Beth Ostrosky on 3 October 2008.
Other radio broadcasters of Stern's era: fellow New Yorker Don Imus, news talker Paul Harvey and alien-chaser Art Bell.