You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s bullish on Sirius XM. Yes, the company’s upcoming iPhone application should better position it for of mobile, always-on audio entertainment future, but that may not even be enough if the company doesn’t get its act together. (Assuming you don’t subscribe to Sirius XM for shows like Howard Stern and Opie and Anthony, there’s so many free alternatives for streaming music nowadays that a $15 subscription fee may be hard for some folks to justify in this economic environment.) But the company’s founder? Yeah, she doesn’t think the company will do too well in The Future.
It’s basically a problem of services. If you put aside its exclusive content—talk shows like Stern and Opie and Anthony, in-depth sports coverage, etc.—all you’re left with is music. And music is everywhere these days, thanks to the Internet. You’ve got Imeem, YouTube, Rhapsody, iTunes, Spottify, illegal sources, etc. Music is a commodity, so to sell it as some sort of special thing or whatever, it won’t work anymore.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that we’re really talking about the future, a time when everyone has smartphones with reliable 3G or faster connections—anyone who attended SXSWi this week will tell you how terrible AT&T was down in Austin. Why, I’m currently a little more than an hour north of NYC, and my BlackBerry can’t even tap into the EDGE network; it’s GPRS all the way for me. There’s no way you can stream high-quality music on such a slow connection.
I don’t know, without its exclusives, Sirius XM doesn’t look so great. And in order to add and keep subscribers, Sirius XM needs to spend money, lots of it, to secure those exclusives. It’s not the best position to be in, that’s for sure.
You guys LOVE to dredge up and rework the tired old news, especially a quote by this paid off dried out transexual. Where are you with the news of the stock going up? Where are you to discuss a company that’s not begging for handouts from the federal government, even though it was that same federal government, ruled by corruption, and the greed of rich dirty senators, who own the media, that almost destroyed this company?
Here’s an idea…get off the terrestrial radio payroll and be a news person, and report the news instread of trying to manipulate it.
Gary Bonura
Don’t forget about the Jason Ellis show!
RED DRAGONS!!!
Music is everywhere these days, but the one place I always listen to music, my car, has limited options. You’re basically stuck with either a radio (terrestrial or satellite) or music player (CD, or MP3, if you’re lucky) when driving down the interstate. CDs are a hassle to keep around if you have a lot of them, which is probably why I don’t buy them anymore, and even my MP3 player doesn’t get much use outside of the gym unless I want to hear a specific album on a long ride. When I get into the car, I turn the key, and CD quality music pours out of the speakers thanks to the built-in Sirius satellite radio. It’s easy, it’s infinitely better than free FM/AM radio, and it was already there when I bought the car. If anything, I think Sirius XM needs to lock themselves into the automakers so hard that it’ll be nearly impossible to buy a new car without a satellite radio pre-installed. Worked on me.
Blah blah blah. Why not report some news? Terrestrial radio must be pissing their panties to put out so much garbage trying to smear Sirius. I sincerely hope Sirius puts ALL of terrestrial radio out of business. They surely deserve it.
Sirius has better content. Period. The internet “substitutes” are crap.
I’m not sure why people ever mention internet radio as an option. I’m not aware of any cars being made with built in wifi and even fewer with hard drives for storing music. I truly believe Sirius XM will have a hard time over the next year, They but they owe zero debt for the rest of 2009 and have reported their first qtr of positive cash flow. They are also the the second largest subscriber service in the country. I remember when people said no one would pay for TV because it was free, well look at us now. We pay for quality!!!
VIVA STERN!
If you’re going to copy and paste news articles, at least do it within a relevant time frame
Nick, can I kiss you on the mouth? Wanna kiss me?
I wish XM would go back to the good programing they had on their, (rock), music stations three years ago. Now it’s just about the same as terrestrial radio only it’s more compressed to fit more garbage in limited bandwidth. It sounds like crap even through my computer speakers.
That’s why I cancelled it last month. They will need more than some exclusive content to save them. It might be better programing if they stopped hiring washed-up radio executives who only understand the playlist mentality.
Glad to see that there are supporters here. I love my SiriusXM. When I’ve been without my car and had to stream to my iPhone via Orb, Pandora, whatever, it sucks! The quality isn’t there and there is nothing else where you can get live, streaming content to your car in the bum-f middle of nowhere. No playlists no thinking, it just works. Ask any long-haul trucker and they will tell you that satellite radio saved their life.
btw, the dried out transexual is a genius. And yes, his/her words were taken out of context.
This article is slanted garbage. I hope the author gets mouth cancer at this point.
Ever try to listen to terrestrial crud versus the content XM provides? There is no competition when driving to and from work. Add streaming audio via the net and you can’t loose.