General Discussion

From a high of nearly 10 million to 125 thousand.

I never liked his fake macho pandering to midling and low IQ fans from his start in syndication. But how he went after rival AOR DJ John DaBella should earn him a spot down below. Philly had a tripple of coexisting radio stations, 93.3 WMMR, and 94.1 in Philly doing Album Oriented Rock with slightly different focuses, WMMR was more progressive rock, and 94 a little harder rock, but heavy overlap. There was 93.7 out of Wilmington Delaware doing a mix of Pop and Rock, so Philly had a culture of channel shifting and the three could thrive mutually. But Stern was hyped up and greedy and he went for the kill and did the unspeakable he pulled his "rival" dj John Debella's estranged wife into being humiliated leaving her dead of a suicide or simple depression caused drug overdose.

https://lasvegasweekly.com/news/archive/2005/nov/03/howard-stern-called-me-out/

But back in 1992, as his show spread from its Manhattan base like some syndicated STD, Stern was still warring with DJs daring to occupy his top ratings spot, arriving city by city to mock 'em, shock-jock 'em and knock 'em on their ass. And topped off by symbolic, public "funerals," the humiliating cherry on the sundae of professional degradation.
(snip)

Fall '92. Philadelphia. Against top-rated John DeBella, Stern launches an utterly ruthless assault that even seasoned, seen-it-all radio vets label "brutal." Stern's bludgeoning instrument of choice is the anguished marital woes of John and Annette DeBella, already painfully chronicled by local press. Stern stages a "Divorce Party" at Independence Mall. Fans in flatbed trucks parked below DeBella's station scream, "I f--ked your wife!" DeBella is s burned in effigy. Stern caps the cruelty by paying Annette $5,000 to guest on a car wreck of a show in which the troubled woman—sounding disoriented and unstable, as the host must have noticed—responds to Stern's prompts like some Pavlovian mutt, ridiculing her husband's endowment and bedroom skills, among other niceties.

A month later, Annette DeBella's body is discovered. After a drunken night around town, she passed out in her car after pulling into the DeBellas' garage. The door was shut, the engine was running; she died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Cops rule it a suicide, though Stern argues it could have been accidental.

I believe he had her also on an episode of his "desperate and dateless" matching her up with some kind of absolute psycho or sleaze or actual homeless type. And did extended bits during this Morning Host "War" thing. I believe that was before this sordid event. That is where an already unstable woman was pushed further as a pawn is a selfish game.