DID you hear what Howard Stern said the other day about retiring when his contract expires in two years. “This is my swan song,” he said.

Mr. Stern is the infamous, ribald radio jock who once commanded attention with each off-color utterance and obscene joke when he was on free radio and had an audience of 12 million back in the day…..is thinking about calling it quits.

That was before Howard went to Sirius radio for the big money with a $500 million, five-year deal which fueled a high-stakes competition between Sirius and XM radio companies, the two services that have since merged into one conglomerate. 

Then — poof! — Mr. Stern all but disappeared. Even Jay Leno, during a recent interview with The New York Times about his decision to stay at NBC to host a prime-time show, cited Mr. Stern as an example of the dangers of obscurity.

Howard Stern was a media and cultural icon whose ramblings were often repeated ( with bleeps) by the mainstream meadia primarily due to its shock value.

“On radio, Howard to me was a populist. The truck driver, the average guy would listen in the cafe, the truck, the old car that’s 50 years old and still has an AM radio,” said Jay Leno in an interview. “But I don’t hear him quoted anymore. People don’t say: ‘Hey, did you hear what Howard said today?’ ”

Yet Mr. Stern’s retirement chatter has gotten his company’s investors fretting over the fate of Sirius XM Radio, the satellite radio company that has been Mr. Stern’s home for the past three years.

Today, five months after regulators approved the merger between Sirius and XM, satellite radio’s pioneers and former rivals, in a deal that was supposed to deliver their industry to the promised land of profits and permanence, the company faces an uncertain future.

Unlike free radio, which depends on advertising, satellite radio offers nearly commercial-free music and talk for a subscription fee. It’s akin to the difference between broadcast TV and premium cable, between NBC and HBO.

The satellite radio industry is relatively young — when Mr. Stern announced that he was joining Sirius in 2004, the company had less than a million subscribers. But it is facing a media environment that is shifting toward cheaply distributed content over the Internet.

It’s a conundrum that all traditional media faces or will face before too long. Who needs satellites — or, for that matter, printing presses and delivery trucks — when the world is wired for broadband and Wi-Fi?

As a long-time, avid Howard Stern listener, I chose not to follow him to “paid radio” as I believed his departure was the end of an era so I began my grieving at that time. For those that have embraced his show on satellite radio, it appears that their time will be arriving soon.

Whatever the outcome, I would like to say, WE LOVE YOU HOWARD…….GOODBYE AND THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!