Howard Stern has joked that it's "aggravating" people like Jason Bateman are launching successful podcasts with ease when he had to work so hard to make his name on the radio.
The shock jock started working on the airwaves in the 70s and became one of the biggest names in radio thanks to his nationally syndicated program, The Howard Stern Show. During a chat on Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett's SmartLess podcast, he quipped that these days "everyone has got a f****** microphone in their house, everybody is on the radio".
Stern, 70, said in his day it was "brutal" trying to make it in the industry and teased that Ozark actor Bateman had made his own success with SmartLess seem straightforward when they chatted about it at his house.
"You three, you want to hear the most aggravating thing?" he asked. "Jason was over at my house, and I have mad respect for Jason... I'm talking to Jason and I'm feeling very good about my own career and everything.
"And Jason goes, 'You know man, it's crazy, we like, started this thing out of our basement, like a radio show.' I'm like, 'Oh here we go, cool' and he goes, 'Yeah, we started this thing and it's just the three of us sitting around and we talk and we just crack each other up. I don't know what's going to happen with it man, but they are telling me it's like the biggest thing ever.'"
"Bull**** I didn't say that!" Bateman piped up, as they all laughed.
Stern went on: "So I go, 'Oh this is great, I spent my life begging people to put me on the radio...' You had to work on your voice this and that, you had to work on the content, you had to make sure you get people—he's clowning around!"
The radio star said it used to be a tough gig building and hanging onto audiences, and that how many people were tuning in was closely monitored.
"When I was on the radio it was brutal," he said. "In order to get an audience and to maintain an audience, every 15 minutes they would take the ratings. It isn't like this where you go, you know, we have a lot of people listening. There could be three people listening to this, nobody know, nobody cares.
"But you are on the radio and every 15 minutes they take ratings and what are you going to do to hold people's attention?"
Newsweek has emailed representatives for Stern and Bateman for comment.
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