Sirius XM vs. history
The newly merged Sirius and XM have a new print PR campaign, heavy on the celebs:
Will satellite radio survive? The companies used to gain four million or so new subscribers a year; now they’re estimating half that. Howard Stern hasn’t been heard of in months, if not years; this is anecdotal, but I don’t think I’ve had a conversation with the words “satellite radio” in it in more than a year myself. I can’t offhand think of a single friend not actually working in the business who subscribes to the system. Look at that ad; is Jamie Foxx a draw to spend $15 a month for radio?
Below the big pictures you can see the company is now boasting of 35 million “listeners,” which translates to “18 million who actually pay us money.”
Below that, there’s a list of other features of the system; I can’t speak of the value of sports packages, but in the music world, at least, the draw of satellite radio dims by the day. All AC/DC or all Zeppelin radio? How hard is it to do that on your iPod? As for the celeb DJs, like Little Steven or Bob Dylan, the novelty will soon wear off for all but the most dedicated fans; as the PDs of the many corpses of stations that tried to give “real music fans” tasteful and challenging programming have discovered, there’s really not much of a market for music people aren’t familiar with.
The one thing that everyone wants in their cars is a Tivo for radio, which would capture “Morning Edition” for you, or “This American Life,” or Dylan’s satellite show, and allow it to be played back at the driver’s convenience. But that’s the sort of sector revivification that would require the entire industry to work together in a forward-looking, consumer-friendly way at odds with its colorful history.
Sirius stock is trading now at about 27 cents; or about one 26th of the $7 average it had, long ago, in 2005. It seems like the merged company has one trend and one hope on its side. The trend is the one away from terrestrial radio of the Clear Channel variety, whose growth remains stagnant and whose quality continues to erode. The hope is that Sirius’s aggressive courting of the automotive industry will make the service somehow de rigeur with a car purchase. The most recent WSJ story ($) on this angle reported that the good news is that Sirius XM now says its radios are being pre-installed in 50 percent of new cars. The bad news is that’s just 45 percent of American cars, and that that number, like its new subscription rate, is dropping fast.
3 Comments so far
Leave a reply
Bill — I’ve been covering satellite radio and other advanced digital entertainment products for years. In fact, I was fortunate enough to be able to introduce XM, Sirius, TiVo, Replay, Dish, DirecTV, DVDs, Divx and Blu-ray to my readers in my reports from CES, and test them out at length prior to their launch in stores. I’ll admit to being a late adaptor to iPods, but that’s only because previous technologies continue to serve their purpose.
Living in L.A. — the graveyard of quality radio — and spending lots of time driving through the signal-challenged Mojave Desert, I can easily say that the only time I’ve been disappointed by either service was when advertising was added to the adult-comedy channel. (I subscribe to both services, using portable units in the car.)I’ve been introduced to music I probably wouldn’t have found on my own in Internet stores, and often am surprised by great songs I haven’t heard in decades.
I fear that you’re judging the product by the marketing campaign,which, as you note, is aimed at mainstream consumers. Sadly, that’s where the money is these days. On satellite and the web, they are in the minority, I suspect.
More savvy listeners know exactly where to find the music they love on the pre-sets and, thus, never have to be assualted by artists they detest. The XM and Sirius brands also are prominent at such events as the annual alt-country and blues awards, which they broadcast (as it were) live and at length. In cities where there no longer are any country or classical outlets, satellite radio truly is a godsend … both for the listeners and the artists who benefit from exposure and promotion.
Fact is, owners of certain portable units — which work like a cell phone … at home, in the car or at a ballgame — already can enjoy TiVo-like technology. If I wanted to time-shift the shows hosted by Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Joan Jett — and, yes, Howard Stern — I easy could. When this technology will be introduced in automobiles is a separate question. My feeling is that drivers shouldn’t be tempted by too many cool toys.
The companies do experiment with wall-to-wall music from individual artists or themes … Elvis, Sinatra, Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett/Parrotheads … some work and some don’t. More often, the solo channels coincide with a prominent tour and don’t detract from other services or last more than a month or two.
Fifteen bucks a month isn’t all that much to pay for quality. I’ve saved more than that amount by not buying as many CDs and limiting consumption of downloads. (On the other hand, I’ve downloaded countless songs I’ve heard exclusively on XM or Sirius. The same applies when I listen to K-PIG on the Internet.)
I’m not the easiest of consumers to please. If I had another complaint, I’d let you know. As someone who can remember the transition of FM from leased foreign-language programming to cutting-edge rock (and its destruction by the Lee Abrams of the world), I could hardly be more satisfied by the programming and knowledgeable, unobtrusive deejays.
I don’t pay much attention to the advertising, or parse the spread sheets. Oh, that way madness lies.
gary d
Bill - I think that Sirius/XM is still a step ahead of terrestrial radio, although the steps are sometimes too bizarre to follow. It reminds me of being a teenager and trying to teach myself to dance using those cut-out footprints. Sat radio is trying to be all things to too many niches, but it’s still a good try. Dylan’s show is still appointment radio (I try to schedule long errands when he’s on…I can’t believe that playlist!!!) as is Tom Petty. As a former fellow pubradio acolyte, I wish that Morning Edition and All Things Considered were available, but the pubradio stations have so far, said no as they continue to play the role of King Canute.
I had satellite radio in the rental car I got recently for a long drive through Oregon. It reminded me of TV in that when you finally go through the million stations you realize there really is nothing on. It was hard to find six stations to preset to - and also very time consuming. As for TIVO for radio - I DO have that: It’s called automatically updating podcasts. I and others wrote about the possibilities embedded in podcasting to change all these old radio paradigms in the latest installment of the series Popular Culture and Philosophy (Open Source Books.) This theme is the Ipod. You can listen the podcast of it at its facebook site.