Howard Stern will receive shares worth $220 million due to a clause in his contract with Sirius Satellite radio over subscriber numbers. I assume that he had a clause that if they hit a certain number -- presumably due to him moving to them -- that he would get a bonus. The target subscriber base that kicked in the clause was undisclosed, but Sirius claimed 3.3 million subscribers at the end of 2005.

Howard Stern signed a 5 year $500 million contract with Sirius in 2004.

Fox News

In a regulatory filing Thursday, Sirius said its subscriber count as of Dec. 31, 2005, exceeded the target it had agreed upon with Stern in October 2004, when it made a five-year deal with him.

At the time, Sirius said its deal with Stern would be worth about $100 million per year beginning in 2006. The 34.4 million shares were worth about $110 million then, but the stock has roughly doubled. The increase has given Stern a windfall of about $100 million to date.

Stern begins his new show on Sirius on Jan. 9, having left his longtime employer Infinity Broadcasting, which has been renamed CBS Radio, a unit of CBS Corp.

Amazing amount of money for not having started at the place. Talk about an advance!