[Darkman]

Sirius Satellite Radio announced it would end the year with fewer subscribers than its earlier estimates, prompting investors to tune out the stock ahead of the holidays. Shares on Tuesday fell 7% in midday trading.

Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin released a statement late Monday that said the No. 2 satellite radio provider expected to have between 5.9 million and 6.1 million subscribers by the end of the year, shy of an earlier projection of 6.3 million...

----
( The entire article is at the following source: http://www.smartmoney.com/onedaywonder/index.cfm?story=20061205 )

 

[SamC]

So much for the "king of all media". Aparently someone will actually go broke underestimating the intelect of the American people.

Both SR providers need to end the crazy "loss leader" payouts to "talent" and simply provide high quality diverse music and a much larger number of talk and other non-music formats, and forget about the 100K people in the country that actually think somebody saying "f***" on the radio is funny.

 

[redfiver]

Sirius has near doubled their subscriber base in less than 2 years. That's pretty darn good growth. Using the end of last year as a base for the current year forecasting wasn't too smart though. When Howard moved to Sirius at the beginning of the year, it had a large impact on the growth of the subscriber base. They've now picked up NASCAR starting in Jan., so that should help fuel some growth. Part of the problem is XM is offered in GM cars, which even with sagging sales, sells lots of cars! That's a huge hole for sirius to fill.

But, the content on Sirius, IMO, is good. A wide variety of music programs (with no commercials!) and lots of talk stations with a decent selection of topics.

As for the language, I don't necessarily believe that people think it's funny when someone says the f-word or other words on the radio, but those words can facillitate a more natural flow in the program. Many people say f*** and s*** and many other words on a daily basis, so if you have a program that is based around people's conversations, it can hurt the flow of the conversation to step around the words you want to use. You should be allowed to say what you like and Satellite Radio gives us back that simple right. If you as a listener don't like the words people are saying or the topics they are discussing, turn the channel.

 

[Darkman]

Published: December 5 2006 19:39

Both beam their content from high above the Earth. Both have faced falling subscriber growth expectations. So why, when it comes to satellite share prices, are TV and radio in different orbits? Since January, radio operators Sirius and XM have tumbled more than 40 per cent. TV providers DirecTV and Echostar are up 36 per cent and 63 per cent respectively.

On an operating level, radio and TV are at different stages of development. Satellite TV is profitable and short term cash flow actually benefits from slower subscriber growth, as operators spend less acquiring new customers. It is less good in the long term. DirecTV's earnings have also soared due to accounting changes, perhaps helping to drive the stock....

https://registration.ft.com/registr...s/s/ad328c18-8497-11db-87e0-0000779e2340.html

 

[Darkman]

By Georg Szalai
Dec 6, 2006

NEW YORK -- The FCC's Robert McDowell in a rare media investor conference appearance Tuesday said that a satellite radio merger could be "an intriguing idea" to look at and signaled that he feels no need for his regulatory agency to mandate a la carte content offerings.

Addressing a room packed with Wall Street folks, McDowell said "the core mission of the FCC is to promote freedom" of consumers and entrepreneurs. The agency's main goals must be to enable free markets and free ideas and remove barriers to entry with any government measures to address market failures having to be narrowly tailored, he added.

Asked about a potential merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio and whether it would abolish competition, McDowell said it is an "intriguing idea" and that he'd "be happy to look at it."...

----
( The entire article is at the following source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr...ness/news/e3ie75b06f448ee15275215c6f344b625f1 )

 

[Steve Mehs]

I don’t care how Wall Street slices it, 5.9 million subscribers is pretty damn good for a company most people thought would go out of business in 2003. Congratulations Sirius on an excellent year!

And as a whole 13.5 million subscribers is awesome for an industry no one (including myself) ever thought would take off. Cell phones, cable TV and the internet, what do all three of theses popular things have in common? In terms of consumer adaption numbers, satellite radio beats them all hands down, which other industry had 13.5 million users in the first five years of existence. And it will continue to grow.