Notably Stern's employers and advertisers seemingly didn't know what they were getting, as judged by their decision to drop him for racist comments. Maybe they should have known, maybe they knew but figured they could profit and then drop him when he screwed up, but they did hire him after his success and drop him later.

You're right that it exactly mirrors PDP's situation: off-the-cuff, inflammatory content creator partners with advertisers, does something extra-inflammatory, gets dropped by same.