The Howard Stern Show is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 and Howard 101, Stern's two uncensored channels on the subscription-based satellite radio service SiriusXM, since 2006. Other prominent staff members include co-host and news anchor Robin Quivers, writer Fred Norris and executive producer Gary Dell'Abate, along with former members Jackie Martling, Billy West, John Melendez, and Artie Lange.

Stern began his radio career in the mid-1970s and developed his show through morning positions at WRNW in Briarcliff Manor, New York, WCCC-FM in Hartford, Connecticut, and WWWW in Detroit. In 1981, he began at WWDC-FM in Washington, D.C., where he was first paired with Quivers and became a ratings success. That was followed by three years at WNBC in New York City. After his abrupt firing, Stern moved to WXRK where he remained for 20 years until December 2005. During this time, The Howard Stern Show was syndicated to 60 radio markets and gained an audience of 20 million listeners at its peak. In the New York area, it was the highest-rated morning radio program from 1994 to 2001. The show is also the most fined in radio history, with a total of $2.5 million in fines issued by the Federal Communications Commission for indecent material. In 2004, Stern signed the first of several five-year contracts with Sirius; the first was reportedly worth $500 million.

In addition to radio broadcasting, The Howard Stern Show has been filmed since 1994 and broadcast on various networks, including the E! and CBS television channels. It moved to HowardTV, Stern's own on-demand digital cable channel from 2005 to 2013.

In the SiriusXM era, the program has increasingly emphasized long-form interviews, with official SiriusXM materials promoting the show's celebrity interviews, staff-driven segments, and archive programming across Howard 100 and Howard 101. Notable later broadcasts have included Stern's 2022 in-studio interview with Bruce Springsteen, his April 2024 interview with President Joe Biden, and his October 2024 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since moving to Sirius in 2006, the program has been centered on two dedicated channels: Howard 100, which SiriusXM describes as the exclusive home of The Howard Stern Show, and Howard 101, which carries The Wrap-Up Show, Sternthology archive programming, celebrity specials, concert performances, and other related material. SiriusXM's current channel descriptions emphasize that Howard 100 features Stern's in-depth celebrity interviews, commentary on current events, behind-the-scenes staff segments, and phony phone calls, while Howard 101 functions as a companion channel built around archival content and post-show discussion.

Stern landed his first professional radio job while at Boston University, performing on-air skits, news casting and production duties at 1550 WNTN in Newton, Massachusetts, from August to December 1975. He also hosted a show with three fellow students on WTBU, the campus radio station; the show was named The King Schmaltz Bagel Hour, which was cancelled during its first broadcast for a sketch called "Godzilla Goes to Harlem". After his graduation, Stern landed some cover shifts in December 1976 at WRNW, a progressive rock station in Briarcliff Manor, New York, where he was subsequently hired full-time as the midday host. He produced more creative commercials by calling business owners live on the air, which he wrote "was mind-blowing to everyone there."

In 1979, Stern responded to an advertisement for a "wild, fun morning guy" at WCCC-FM, an album oriented rock (AOR) station in Hartford, Connecticut. He produced a more outrageous audition tape, playing Robert Klein and Cheech and Chong records mixed with flatulence routines and one-liners. He was hired for the job, his first in a large radio market. As the station's public affairs director, Stern also hosted a half-hour interview show on Sunday mornings, which he enjoyed as it contained no music. He would ask unusual questions to his guests, such as their dating habits. Stern held a two-day boycott of Shell Oil Company during the summer of the 1979 energy crisis, which put Stern and the station into the national news. Stern also began his "Dial-a-Date" routines at WCCC, and met Fred Norris, the station's overnight disc jockey who provided Stern's show with various comedic impressions of celebrities. Norris would join the show as Stern's writer and producer in 1981.

Stern left WCCC after being denied a raise in salary. He began a new morning shift at WWWW, a struggling rock outlet in Detroit, Michigan, on April 21, 1980. He learned to become more open on the air and "decided to cut down the barriers ... strip down all the ego ... and be totally honest ... I still sounded like an FM announcer". Stern held a bra-burning event and wrestled women outside the studios, and invited listeners to confess the most outrageous places where they had sex, and record their calls for the air. A stunt in which listeners paid $1.06 (the station's FM frequency) to hit a Japanese car with a sledgehammer earned Stern national mention. For his performance, Stern won a Billboard award for "Best Album-Oriented Rock Disc Jockey" and was featured in the Drake-Chenault "Top Five Talent Search" contest in the AOR category. Published in January 1981, the fall Arbitron ratings showed that Stern trailed his three rock competitors with a 1.6% market share of the listening audience during an average quarter-hour. It was the final straw for management, which turned WWWW into a country music format on January 18, 1981. Stern made a brief, half-hearted attempt to be a country radio DJ but realized it wasn't to his liking. Stern left the station soon after and declined offers to work at CHUM-FM in Toronto, WXRT in Chicago and WPLJ in New York City.