Howard Stern on American Idol? Don't Count On It

Late last week, the New York Post reported (and I use the term loosely) that Howard Stern was being tapped to replace Simon Cowell when the acerbic Brit departs "American Idol" at the end of this season. The blogosphere went nuts.

Actually, more like batcrap insane. Even the mainstream media began reporting the story. And when Stern addressed the rumour on his Sirius satellite radio show, goofing about how he would love to judge "that ****ing karoake contest" if they paid him a hundred-million bucks, suddenly there were reports up the wazoo about how Stern confirmed he was in the running.

But what did the King of All Media actually say? I'll tell you: "It might be possible, we'll see." As for the status of any ongoing talks with Fox? "I'm not going to comment on any discussions I might or might not have had."

Not exactly what I would call confirmation.

Still, the media has been running with this story all week, and Stern is clearly loving it, devoting huge chunks of his shows this week to talking about what he would do as an "Idol" judge (he's suggesting a trapdoor to remove auditioners from the stage, zapping bad singers with a taser and using a ping-pong paddle to "smack Randy Jackson's belly every time he opens his dopey mouth.")

He's also been ragging on "that [excrement]-head" Ryan Seacrest and going into serious detail about how much he despises Ellen DeGeneres. Does this sound like somebody who's negotiating to sit at the judges' table?

Here's what I think is going on. The New York Post, which ran the initial story, is, like the Fox network, owned by Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. Let's say "Idol" producers wanted to float the idea of bringing Stern aboard to gauge public reaction — what better way than to plant a phony story in a gossip column and find out. What they've found out, apparently, is what we pretty much already knew: Howard Stern is a polarizing figure who would likely re-energize the show, but would also probably tick off a substantial portion of the show's white-bread, corn-fed audience in Middle America.

And Stern? He's using the the entire situation to do what he does best: promote Howard Stern.

Personally, I'm a fan, and would love to see what kind of mayhem Stern could create on TV's No. 1 show. But do I actually think it has a snowball's chance in hell of happening? No way.