Well, it was bound to happen.

One of Howard Stern‘s loyal listeners pulled a fast one on CBS/KCAL 9 during the middle of their coverage on the Christopher Dorner standoff.

Ronnie the Limo Driver: 1, CBS/KCAL: 0.

UPDATE: Romenesko points out that Captain Janks, a regular caller on the Howard Stern show, is taking credit for the prank call.

This is about as rapid a rise through the radio ranks as we have encountered in quite some time. Made all the more remarkable because it took place during the usually quiet Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.

Just six weekends into his Saturday-Sunday KSCO AM 1080/KOMY AM 1340 weekend talk show Lieberman Live, San Francisco media blogger Rich Lieberman is shifting to weekday afternoons (1 p.m.-4 p.m. PT). There will be no programs this coming weekend as he prepares to launch the new, expanded KOMY version of The Rich Lieberman Show January 7.

“We really hit a home run with the program,” Lieberman tells FishbowlLA via telephone. “People reacted so strongly to the content and guests like Patrick Warburton and ex-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, that the owner of KOMY, Michael Zwerling, decided to go ahead and make me a part of the station’s weekday schedule.”

“No one is being replaced,” he continues. “They’re just moving some stuff around to accommodate me and will continue to feature syndicated people like Rush Limbaugh, Phil Hendrie and Alan Colms.”

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On Monday, LA Times TV reporter Scott Collins shared a solid contextual look at the recent Tonight Show layoffs. We caught up with his piece tonight and were plainly amazed that there has not been more media pick-up of paragraph number three:

Leno even offered to work for free to save more jobs, according to people familiar with the matter, who said the offer was rejected because executives believed it would set a bad precedent. These people said Tonight was now barely breaking even.

Got that? Leno was reportedly willing to forego his entire $26 million (or thereabouts) annual salary, which he famously banks while paying the bills with coin earned from stand-up appearances. Despite this staggering offer of charity, the rest of this week’s Leno coverage has been gleefully focused on disparaging Leno slams made by Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern.

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In the latest episode of mediabistroTV’s “My First Big Break,” daytime talk show star Wendy Williams talks about landing her first job in radio and abstaining from sex while she struggled early on in her career.

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

See, it’s not just American Idol that’s having a problem keeping judges around.

America’s Got Talent judge Sharon Osbourne is quitting the NBC show and won’t return next summer. She broke the news with a cryptic tweet on Tuesday: “My darling @HowardStern, money is not the reason I’m not returning to @nbcagt, it’s because…”

Let the speculation begin if Osbourne is quitting because of the addition of Howard Stern or if she simply wants to spend more time with her family in Los Angeles. This is the first season the show has been based in New York, thanks to execs accommodating Stern’s schedule.

On top of that, the NY Post notes that Stern announced on his radio show Monday that he’s on the bubble about returning next season as well. Ratings are down 15 percent compared to last year, despite their high-priced acquisition.

Although Greg Hernandez (pictured) has logged many years as a reporter for the Daily News and LA Times, it was actually his personal blog Greg in Hollywood that led to his latest full-time gig. Since early December, he has been working out of his home office in Silver Lake as the LA correspondent for London-based website gaystarnews.com.

Hernandez, who posts an average of five stories per weekday, says a recent talk show host controversy sparked some of his biggest personal traffic stats so far. “That business about One Million Moms wanting JC Penney to fire Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson because she is gay was huge,” he tells FishbowlLA. “Another big story for me involved Howard Stern‘s passionate defense of Ellen and his tirade against some of the more socially conservative presidential candidates.”

On the gaystarnews.com website, there is an impressive listing of the principles anchoring the outlet’s “commitment to ethical, quality journalism.” Hernandez works via email and Skype with not just his editors in London but also some of the site’s other far-flung correspondents.

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What more can be said about Johnny Carson that hasn’t already been said? According to Peter Jones, the PBS documentary producer who pursued the late night host for ten years before being curtly turned down, Carson himself certainly believed all had been aired.

Still, for Tonight Show connoisseurs, the upcoming May 14 “American Masters” series documentary on PBS promises a few new tidbits, most notably Joan Rivers revisiting her disastrous decision to not keep Carson properly in the loop about her discussions with FOX. Ray Richmond, the former Hollywood Reporter staffer now helping with Deadline.com’s TCA coverage, has the details from this morning’s Winter Session panel:

“Joan really speaks about that for the first time with us,” Jones said. “She admits that she probably shouldn’t have let Johnny find out about it second-hand. … Johnny never spoke with Joan again. She called him to discuss it with him and he hung up on her. The whole thing with Joan broke Johnny’s heart, it really did.”

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A month after CNN host Piers Morgan quit as judge on NBC’s America Got Talent, syndicated radio host Howard Stern was hired as his replacement.

How much pull does Stern have? The show is moving from Los Angeles to New York in order to accommodate the shock jock.

“Howard Stern’s larger-than-life personality will bring a thrilling new dynamic to ‘America’s Got Talent’ starting this summer,” said Paul Telegdy, president of alternative and late-night programming at NBC. “He’s a proven innovator and his track record in broadcasting is truly remarkable. Howard is very passionate about this show and is fully committed to its future success.”

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Rumors have been flying about who would replace CNN host Piers Morgan on America’s Got Talent after he announced last week that he was quitting the show due to his busy schedule.

Howard Stern, who is reportedly in talks with NBC for the position, addressed the rumors Monday on his nationally syndicated morning talk show:

“Everyone knows I love ‘America’s Got Talent. I think it’s the greatest and I would be certainly honored to sit with Howie [Mandel] and Sharon [Osbourne] and judge these lunatics. I take show business very seriously. If I was a judge on there, there would be no nonsense whatsoever. I would be there for the talent. I would be there to actually find somebody good I am not the next judge. I have no deal with ‘America’s Got Talent’… I’m not going to comment if I’m in negotiations… I don’t comment on negotiations.”

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As might be expected, the Ratner-Murphy-Grazer-Crystal game of Oscar musical chairs is echoing across Madison Avenue. According to Claire Atkinson of the New York Post, brand new AMPAS marketing chief Christina Kounelias (pictured) and her colleagues are scrambling to adjust an ad sales pitch that until recent events at the Arclight and on Howard Stern airwaves, was predicated entirely on Axel Foley.

One of the problems the Oscar marketing gang faces is that the selection of a 63-year-old, traditional format replacement host leaves them challenged to explain how they will fix what happened last year. Despite the presence of a tweeting James Franco and giggling Anne Hathaway, the 2010 Oscars broadcast was a disaster:

Horizon Media researcher Brad Adgate noted that the Oscars broadcast actually aged upwards last year with the median age hitting 50.6 years — the oldest it’s ever been.

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