It was the right decision, and got him a temporary bump in views, and maybe subs.

1) Sirius wasn't going to take him back. Opie and Jim weren't going to push to get him back. Opie doesn't even like Jim that much anymore. They're both old, and were in the twilight of their shock jock careers anyway.

2) Opie can't really hurt him worse professionally more than he hurt himself.

3) Fans don't really care, other than it's funny to watch a couple of old men have a purse fight in public.

You aren't wrong, but it would be in both of their interests to get back together. That's assuming Sirius would have taken Anthony back, which who knows. Both shows are utter garbage separately, and I don't believe that they were nearing retirement anyway. It's such an easy gig, and even with paycuts it's enough money to stick around for. Anthony blew up any chance at a reunion, seems silly. Why blow a future opportunity? Especially considering Anthony's lifestyle, who knows how long his small fortune will last.

I don't really buy that sirius wouldn't take him back. All he had really done wrong at that point was say some racist shit that got him fired. And he said it after supposedly being provoked. It's the kind of thing that gets you benched for a year or two, but it doesn't end your career. Just lay low, make some half-assed apology, do some goodwill bullshit in the community, go to therapy and claim you really learned some things even if you didn't and all of a sudden you're on the road to some phony redemption and the prodigal son returns just as the new 2 year contracts were set to expire. But I guess he had no interest and went all-in with TACS instead of leaving the door open.

But Greggshells wasn't so horrible that you never get back together. That's just one of those things you laugh about when you get back on air together and play it up as another legendary moment in our crazy careers so that you can continue to make lots of money.

Sirius wasn't going to take back Anthony without a pretty big price break and numerous concessions and contract clauses, if at all. Here are things that go against it -

1) Anthony started to motherfuck the brand a day after he was fired. I have no doubt that caused a huge amount of damage.

2) I have no doubt that they were hating the racism coming out of him toward the end. Toward the end, it wasn't fun wink and a nod racist Cumia. It was the same old manish shit he does now. No huge company is taking another huge chance with someone like that in this era. Also, even if they were interested, does anyone really think Anthony could be a good boy for the 2-3 year break he'd probably need to fix his image?

3) Opie and Anthony would be at the tail end of their middle 50's conceivably by the time Anthony could try to get back with Opie. Shock Jockery is a young man's game, and the whole genre is dying, being edged out by podcast and the internet. Opie, himself, was edging it toward boring radio, even while Anthony was there.

Also, let's be honest, Opie and Anthony aren't great interviewers, so they can't fall into a groove like the new Stern or Ron Bennington.

Anthony is better at it than Opie, but then he'd always have Opie fucking up everything looking for his line, taste, etc....

4) Sirius didn't, and doesn't like the show, toward the end it was an expensive second fiddle to Stern. Stern is and will always be their #1.

The show even with Anthony was starting to fade, I can remember lots of listening threads from this sub intimating just that toward the end.

We never really knew how many listeners O and A had during the middle and end of their run, but Danny mentioned that it was only in the 10's of 1000's toward the end. Most aging shows need lots of quality support staff to keep things fresh. Sirius wasn't even willing to give them that. They were lucky to keep Erock, Troy, Sam, and most of the original guys.

Damn great response

I think maybe he was angry ? And it did get more people to watch and talk about him. So a little bit of both.

All of the above. And he should put out more free episodes. The "best of" isn't very good advertising. He should probably have 1 entire free episode a week. Otherwise, how can they ever expect new people to be willing to pay for a subscription?