XM / Sirius merger?

Strong Bad

Very interesting!

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=114255

strider

That'll be interesting. As long as they keep Mojo Nixon on Sirius, I'll deal with it.

Demiurge

Thanks for posting this. Had a whole forum full of asshats saying how wrong I was when I claimed that Satellite Radio was going to ultimately fail with the advent of iPod and other such devices. This move only ensures it's doom.

bobman1235

I don't know if I can agree that the reason they failed (or are on the verge of failing) is portable media like the iPod.... but it's an interesting argument

The merger talks are still all speculation, though. Both satellite companies are in the black (or almost in the black) for the first time since their inceptions.

sucks2beme

Demiurge wrote:

Thanks for posting this. Had a whole forum full of asshats saying how wrong I was when I claimed that Satellite Radio was going to ultimately fail with the advent of iPod and other such devices. This move only ensures it's doom.

The real failure is in not knowing their customer base.
Most sports junkies aren't going to use the radio-they want to see the action.
Drop talk radio and sports. This is what makes it expensive. Cut the rates in half and improve the sound. The content is good. I just get tired of it
not sounding good. Even the Mrs. has said it doesn't sound as good.
I stopped listening to local radio when I could drive 40 minutes and here
nothing but snorting and he-hawing from DJs that think they're entertaining.
HD radio? HD re-broadcasting of that crap ain't going to cut it.
HD will die first. XM/Sirius will be next if they don't control costs and re-focus
on the groups that will shell out for pay radio.


Yes I'm an miserable old coot. :mad:

bobman1235

sucks2beme wrote:

Drop talk radio and sports. This is what makes it expensive.

I'm pretty sure the hugely expensive satellite infrastructure is what makes it expensive. Not to mention that talk radio and sports are what draw the most people to satellite radio. The only reason I'd get XM is for specific talk radio programs.... music is what I have an iPod for, as Demi alluded to. One of the biggest demographics of the satellite userbase is truckers, who mostly listen to .... talk and sports. Hell, that idiot Howard Stern may have all but kept Sirius from folding altogether.

Demiurge

bobman1235 wrote:

I don't know if I can agree that the reason they failed (or are on the verge of failing) is portable media like the iPod.... but it's an interesting argument

The merger talks are still all speculation, though. Both satellite companies are in the black (or almost in the black) for the first time since their inceptions.

Their stocks have been tanking since their inception, and their business forumula was all hype because it was something new. Since the stock is tanking it means their subscriptions are going down or they're hemorrhaging cash because their costs are too high. Either way, I feel that a person who can download a TV show or PodCast is going to do that rather than pay another monthly fee for something they can get for free. Howard Stern isn't that appealing.

Strong Bad

I personally love XM and paid for a years service. I pretty much listen at some point during the week, most of the programming. Just depends on my mood.

If they were to merge and integrate all or most of their programming into one service, it should be quite amazing! I could care less about Howard Stern, but he did just get an $80mil bonus due to the amount of subscribers that came on after he started his show. Per his contract, if they had something like 3.5mil subscribers by a certain date, he got X # of bonus. They wound up having 6mil subscribers.

I'm not an Ipod or MP3 player fan. They're not for me. XM gives me a huge variety.

John

Shizelbs

They have between the two of them almost 14 million subscribers. Thats a lot of money guarenteed to come in each and every month. My guess is if they are stuggling they are spending too much damned money. If this is spending bourne out of competition, I can see a merger being a good solution to the problem.

Even I have the confidence I could make that work.

dylan

Sirius can go to hell for giving all that money to howard stern. They need to control costs and this is what they agreed to? Then if they do merge, XM/ stockholders are stuck with this decision. Blech.

ND13

I have Sirius in my Dakota. I was very pleased with it on my roadtrip to PFest. I love that I can listen to the same program for 700+ miles. I will say that they do need to improve the SQ, though. It's clean, but a bit muffled on the top end, when compared to a cd.

I don't foresee satellite radio failing. As technology evolves, the SQ will get better and eventually, I believe rates will drop, too.

Demiurge

If satellite radio was profitable the only two top companies wouldn't be merging. If they were a company in a sea of many, merging would make more sense and benefit both companies by stealing a sizeable market share.

Time will tell though. I hope for the sake of you guys that like it that it sticks around.

steveinaz

Hopefully Sirius will explain to XM what "treble" is...LOL

Mike682

Interesting...it looks like Sirius has more interest in a merger.

According to that article, the FCC wouldn't be likely to approve a merger anyway.

I like XM and enjoy the huge amount of programming. Sound quality is not outstanding, but I don't expect it to be the best either.

jkn

We only got XM about a month ago when we bought our new Yamaha AVR - and dropped our digital cable. Sound quality is hit and miss - some channels (chill and standard jazz) sound really nice - others (all the other electronica stations, several of the jazz stations, and a few rock/pop stations) sound like mp3's to me... still - I'm happy that chill and standard jazz sound good.

As far as merging goes - I don't know - no competition usually means higher prices and less service. Maybe I'll be wrong.

szhleppy

steveinaz wrote:

Hopefully Sirius will explain to XM what "treble" is...LOL

Ha! The first time I listened to XM it sounded the same way that everything sounds the day after a really loud concert. Funny thing is...I couldn't remember going to a concert the night before.

From a consumer standpoint, this merger would be great! I had XM for a short time and had buyer's remorse when I realized Sirius had NFL, NBA, and seemed more determined to add quality sports content...XM was working on locking in Oprah and Friends.:rolleyes: I was also disappointed in the playlists on XM...they played some unexpected tracks, but played the same unexpected tracks over and over. I've found the same thing on Sirius as well (I have never owned a Sirius player, but get quite a few rental cars with Sirius).

From an investor standpoint...well, how much worse could it really get?