# What Sirius can do to save themselves



## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

I never hear or see any advertisements for satellite radio. I have gone many places pulled in to park and had someone ask what is that stuck to your dash or windshield. And i tell them and they say that is cool i never heard of that before. This is the biggest problem. Dish and Directv advertise like crazy. But Sirius and XM never advertised like that. Heck XM was out for several years before i ever knew about it and that was only because i was looking at a car and when i was in the dealership i saw a brochure for XM and once i looked at it i thought this was really cool.
Granted i see at Target and wal mart the radios but its not well pushed or well positioned as it should be.

Instead of spending money paying all these celebrities how about spending money on advertising. And wider playlists would be nice too.
I would say something like how would you like to have more then 100 channels of COMMERCIAL FREE Music to choose from and no matter where you travel you can get your music.

I think they have concentrated on the auto industry to much and should be talking with trucking companies. Just think if they offered every major trucking company free radios and then a discount on the service because they would have so many. 
Heck why not advertise on radio. 
The people that they need to target are those who travel cross country for business on a regular basis.


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## todbnla (Aug 2, 2008)

Somewhat along the same lines: whats the difference between SAT radio and HD fm radio? I just bought an 08 F150 and it has 6mths of Sirus/XM and I have to say, its sounds ok, but at times I am not really impressed with the sound quality, is sat radio supposed to be better quality than HD fm radio? Just asking, I don't know...I'm trying to warm up to sat radio as much as I love my D*tv but so far its not so much...? What am I missing?


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

ibooksrule said:


> I never hear or see any advertisements for satellite radio. I have gone many places pulled in to park and had someone ask what is that stuck to your dash or windshield. And i tell them and they say that is cool i never heard of that before. This is the biggest problem. Dish and Directv advertise like crazy. But Sirius and XM never advertised like that. Heck XM was out for several years before i ever knew about it and that was only because i was looking at a car and when i was in the dealership i saw a brochure for XM and once i looked at it i thought this was really cool.
> Granted i see at Target and wal mart the radios but its not well pushed or well positioned as it should be.
> 
> Instead of spending money paying all these celebrities how about spending money on advertising. And wider playlists would be nice too.
> ...


They do advertise. I see their ads on TV quite often actually, though not as much since the merger.

My guess is that this has a good bit to do with it:



http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SIRI said:


> Balance Sheet
> Total Cash (mrq):	365.51M
> Total Cash Per Share (mrq):	0.104
> Total Debt (mrq):	3.37B
> Total Debt/Equity (mrq):	214.157


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## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

I have had great sound i dont know how the HD radio sounds but to me its more about that with sat radio i have no commercials and i can travel anywhere and still get the same station.
Still more content as well.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

IMO, sat radio was implemented too poorly to be a major success.

First, there is a limited number of people willing to pay for sat radio, and those are mostly folks who spend many hours a day in their car.

Then the equipment was either expensive (the integrated solutions) or in many cases left you with a low-quality FM-modulated connection. And most people needed a professional install in order to get a neat, semi-integrated install, without wires everywhere and the cigarette lighter used to power the receiver.

Third was a problem that XM eventually addressed but Sirius did not, which is tying your subscription to a removable "key" that could be moved from receiver to receiver, so that one subscription could be used in multiple locations.

Fourth, there were two companies with two different, incompatible systems that required proprietary hardware, but offered mostly the same content. This in a market that was never big enough, or high revenue enough, to support two systems.

And now, in order to be successful, the one merged company has to do one of two things to survive and continue: keep both systems up and running, or replace half of their subscribers' receivers. It can't afford to do either one.

XM always had the best equipment ideas, but Sirius seemed to have the better programming (where the difference could be noticed). Somehow, they've got to find a way to get everyone on a single platform, and make that platform as flexible as the last generation of XM equipment (movable account keys). Then, and IMO only then, will they have a future.

As for HD radio, it too was very poorly implemented, and may well not survive. The system requires a custom decoder processor that requires too much power to make practical portable devices. To me, that kills HD radio right there. It's also FAR too expensive, and the tuners aren't nearly sensitive enough, so reception problems are common.

All in all, all three options have serious problems at the moment.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> Third was a problem that XM eventually addressed but Sirius did not, which is tying your subscription to a removable "key" that could be moved from receiver to receiver, so that one subscription could be used in multiple locations.


Sirius offered a similar solution to XMs Connect and Play as well. Many of Sony's higher end A/V Receivers both the current generation, and the previous generation offer, are both XM and Sirius ready and use Sirius' version of it.


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## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

I think allot of people would pay not to have to listen to commercials. What is needed is a big push for offices, truckers and others who listen to the radio all day.
When i am in my office and not working out of my home i have my sirius on because i can not stand to hear 10 minutes of music with 20 minutes of commericials. I realize its not that much but it seems i get more talk then music. Especially in the morning all i hear is 1 song then talk talk talk then 1 song. 

Satellite radio is a God send. I love big bands 40s and the 80s channel and some of the others. Music i cant hear anywhere else. if just more people would realize how cool it is and how great it is. You can now get radios for $40 or less. I picked up last year an XM audiovox (granted it was not the best) for $25.

I can not see HD radio surviving. unless its commercial free i dont see how its any better. 90% of people who listen to the radio are not listening for top sound quality. Many cars would not reproduce the sound even if it was top notch. 
I hear HD radio being advertised every so often but from what i have read about it i see nothing great about it. Sure its free but i dont understand people barking at $12 a month for satellite radio. Gosh thats 1 pizza or 2 value meals at fast food joints. People bark at $12 a month for that but yet they will spend tons of money on other things.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

tcusta00 said:


> They do advertise. I see their ads on TV quite often actually, though not as much since the merger.
> 
> My guess is that this has a good bit to do with it:


Well I'm glad they have had ads in your area, but I'm like the poster above who said they had never heard of it until they were looking for a car. XM I believe started in the late 90's (please someone correct me on this if I'm wrong). I had never heard of Sat. Radio, Sirius, or XM until I got a car in 2007 that had an XM Radio in it. And I thought how cool is this  Seriously or "Siriusly" I thought it was something new


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

1. They have more customers than DirecTV so the market can't be "too" limited. Actually the same type of comments about people being willing to pay was made about TV. SiriusXM needs to have content that people want. That's why they're doing deals with the sports leagues, Howard Stern, etc.

2. Once again same thing was said about satellite TV. Actually, the prices of satellite radios (standalone) has always been pretty reasonable (sub $100). The car manufacturers have a long history of overcharging for audio features like tape players, FM, stereo, etc. There are still cars without auxiliary jacks as well. The market has developed though. There are 3rd party conversion kits available at reasonable rates. Tape players and CD players and upgraded radios also required professional installs early on in their history.

3. I agree with you here. I think the cost per extra receiver is too high. The availability of the internet players at no additional charge has helped though.

4. Yes, if they're going to survive in the long term they need make all radios dual system compat and be able to market one expanded service with different packages.

I believe they have the customer base to support the business now. They need to be able to survive in the short term (next year) to be able to truly merge the two services. Having to support all of the installed car systems will be an issue for years unless they pay to replace them. Of course, GM was allowed to just shut off OnStar in many relatively new vehicles.

The huge delay on the merger caused by the NAB's huge lobbying effort really hurt the company's future. They lost so much momentum during the past 18 months. People were unwilling to buy new radios because of the uncertainty.



IIP said:


> IMO, sat radio was implemented too poorly to be a major success.
> 
> First, there is a limited number of people willing to pay for sat radio, and those are mostly folks who spend many hours a day in their car.
> 
> ...


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## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

I agree with the poster above. I remember when Directv was just starting out and everyone said why would we pay for satellite TV when i can just have cable. It took Directv and Dish awhile to get going before people really took hold of it. 

The thing i was hoping for with the merger was a combination of the 2. So if you wanted deeper play lists you listen to this channel if you wanted more mainstream hits then you turn to another channel.
I mean they did keep some of both.

They really need to market it more though. If i would have known about XM years ago when it came out i would have had it in my car.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

Satellite radio is very much a luxury. They need to market more to people who have the disposable income to pay for it. If that target market is not enough to carry the business into profitability, then about the only alternative is to sell "lite" versions of the service for less. If it's the talent like Howard and Martha that costs them so much, then maybe they should sell a music-only package for less. And I can't believe I'd dare to suggest such a thing, but maybe they need to sell advertising. Not commercial interruption on the music channels, but maybe scroll some ads on the display.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

*Twenty* *million* subscribers.

Let me repeat that.

20,000,000

If you can't make a profit from 20 million paying customers, there's something wrong (and those of us who have followed this saga from the beginning know what a lot of those wrong decisions were)


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

rudeney said:


> Satellite radio is very much a luxury. They need to market more to people who have the disposable income to pay for it. If that target market is not enough to carry the business into profitability, then about the only alternative is to sell "lite" versions of the service for less. If it's the talent like Howard and Martha that costs them so much, then maybe they should sell a music-only package for less. And I can't believe I'd dare to suggest such a thing, but maybe they need to sell advertising. Not commercial interruption on the music channels, but maybe scroll some ads on the display.


Satellite radio is a low-priced luxury on par with something like an HBO subscription. So, yes if you consider everything over the basic essentials a luxury you're correct, but we're not talking about purchasing a Porsche...or for that matter it's not even close to daily cup of coffee at your local Dunkin Donuts.

They already do sell advertising on the talk related stations like Howard Stern, Maddog, etc.


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## ke3ju (Aug 18, 2006)

I think it should be like Sat TV where you can get your locals. When I commute, I lose my local radio station about half way to work. I'd also love to be able to listen to my local stations while being out of town.

I'd pay extra for that.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

Ken S said:


> Satellite radio is a low-priced luxury on par with something like an HBO subscription. So, yes if you consider everything over the basic essentials a luxury you're correct, but we're not talking about purchasing a Porsche...or for that matter it's not even close to daily cup of coffee at your local Dunkin Donuts.


I say it's a luxury because it serves no practical purpose and at it's most basic level (radio entertainment), it's something you can get for free (i.e. AM/FM radio). Your comparison to HBO is reasonable.



> They already do sell advertising on the talk related stations like Howard Stern, Maddog, etc.


I was just thinking back to the topic of the thread - how can Sirius save themselves? If they need more revenue and they aren't getting it through new subs, then additional advertising is one way. I don't believe it would be a good idea to put ads on their "commercial-free music channels", but banner adds on the display would not be bad.


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

ke3ju said:


> I think it should be like Sat TV where you can get your locals. When I commute, I lose my local radio station about half way to work. I'd also love to be able to listen to my local stations while being out of town.
> 
> I'd pay extra for that.


At one time XM had plans for 6 regional channels in addition to WLW. Clear Channel decided not to go ahead with the channels.

Bring back Mat the Cat and the other XM PDs


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Ken S said:


> Of course, GM was allowed to just shut off OnStar in many relatively new vehicles.


Define "relatively new". My understanding is that the obsolescence only impacts vehicles that are five years old and older.

It wasn't the break with XM that rendered the older OnStar units non-functional. It was the fact that they had only analog cell phone technology built in.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

harsh said:


> Define "relatively new". My understanding is that the obsolescence only impacts vehicles that are five years old and older.
> 
> It wasn't the break with XM that rendered the older OnStar units non-functional. It was the fact that they had only analog cell phone technology built in.


GM was not the only company who planned poorly or the analog cellular sunset. As late as the 2005 model year, Mercedes-Benz was still building vehicles with analog-only telematics systems knowing full well they would be useless in just a few years. of course they said they would offer an upgrade path, but the last I heard, that was well over $1,000 and I'm not sure they actually even sold them (likely due to a lack of demand).


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## Reaper (Jul 31, 2008)

djlong said:


> *Twenty* *million* subscribers.
> 
> Let me repeat that.
> 
> ...


This is so true. If your subscriber count is correct, and if the average subscriber is paying $9.99 a month then that's almost 200 million dollars in revenue A MONTH. How can they NOT be turning a profit?


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## SatPilot (Aug 5, 2007)

Reaper said:


> This is so true. If your subscriber count is correct, and if the average subscriber is paying $9.99 a month then that's almost 200 million dollars in revenue A MONTH. How can they NOT be turning a profit?


The problem is they always need CASH to pay things so in order to raise cash fast they offer discounted "lifetime" subscriptions. People buy these and then the companies monthly revenue stream suddenly disappears. This is why the number of subscribers must continue to increase to cover the costs.


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## Reaper (Jul 31, 2008)

SatPilot said:


> The problem is they always need CASH to pay things so in order to raise cash fast they offer discounted "lifetime" subscriptions. People buy these and then the companies monthly revenue stream suddenly disappears. This is why the number of subscribers must continue to increase to cover the costs.


Did XM offer lifetime subscriptions or was this unique to Sirius (prior to the merger)? I've been an XM subscriber since the late 90's but don't recall ever being offered this option. Instead, I pay annually.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

Lifetime was unique to Sirius before the merger. Only now is it being offered on the XM side.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

harsh said:


> Define "relatively new". My understanding is that the obsolescence only impacts vehicles that are five years old and older.
> 
> It wasn't the break with XM that rendered the older OnStar units non-functional. It was the fact that they had only analog cell phone technology built in.


I didn't suggest that XM had anything to do with the Onstar issue. I think my Saab 9-3SE was just 4 years old when they cut off OnStar service.


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## SatPilot (Aug 5, 2007)

Reaper said:


> Did XM offer lifetime subscriptions or was this unique to Sirius (prior to the merger)? I've been an XM subscriber since the late 90's but don't recall ever being offered this option. Instead, I pay annually.


Yes i think you are right, this was something Sirius brought with it into the merger.

BTW, Airlines do this ALL the time. These fare "sales" are nothing more than a cash position increase in the books.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

I finally saw/heard an ad for Sirius Radio on the NFL Network. I'm sure all those people watching that game left their TVs and went right out and got a Sirius Radio :lol: Still it was an ad and the first one I had ever seen/heard so I guess that is something--not much, but something :icon_lame


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Dolly said:


> I finally saw/heard an ad for Sirius Radio on the NFL Network. I'm sure all those people watching that game left their TVs and went right out and got a Sirius Radio :lol: Still it was an ad and the first one I had ever seen/heard so I guess that is something--not much, but something :icon_lame


Dolly,

I don't think you're going to see a lot of ads for retail sales until the multi service radios are available. Really wouldn't make much sense for a cash-strapped company would it?

The ads on the NFL network are part of their deal with the NFL.


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## txtommy (Dec 30, 2006)

I had one Sirius and one XM subscription since each came with the vehicles; BMW and Honda. If I had both subscriptions to either service, the second subscription would be discounted but even after the merger I have to pay full price for each subscription since they are not technically the same. I would have renewed both if I could discount one of them. At full price I cannot afford both especially since I only drive one vehicle at a time. It is comparable to having Dish in one room and Directv in another, paying for two services that are essentially the same entertainment.
Also I listen to one channel about 90% of the time but I still have to pay for 100+ channels including talk shows like Howard Stern that I never listen to. If I wanted to hear talk and DJs I would turn to FM radio.
If I could choose a package that included only 3 or 4 selected channels and get the second subscription at half cost, I'd probably sign up again but two separate subscriptions to 100+ channels is just not good economics for me.


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## ibooksrule (Feb 16, 2003)

I think the problem is many people dont know about Sirius and when i have talked to people about it they are like i have plenty to listen to on my radio now why do i need more channels. Others say oh im not in my car but like 10 minutes a day so its not worth it to me.

That is why i said long ago even before posting here that Sirius should make a deal with all the major trucking companies and they could offer it on more airlines. I realize they are working on the dual radio thing but they could start negotiations. They also need to market to other people such as sales people who are in their car for long periods.
The thing i dont get is people complaining about the cost. Like $12 is expensive. Its amazing sometimes how people look at things. Its to expensive to spend $12 on something like Sirius but its ok to eat pizza 3 times a week thats like $15-20. 

I think Sirius can survive they just need to stop spending so much on stupid things and heck maybe get rid of some of these high priced celebrities or like someone else said put them in a different pack and thats extra to get them.


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## Dolly (Jan 30, 2007)

I agree with your idea about people that due to their jobs do a lot of driving. Sat. Radio is perfect for them because no matter where they go the Sat. Radio is always playing instead of them having to always look for local channels in the area they are in. Also the airlines would be good. Directv already is in with the airlines so why not Sat. Radio?


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

rudeney said:


> I say it's a luxury because it serves no practical purpose and at it's most basic level (radio entertainment), it's something you can get for free (i.e. AM/FM radio).


It's not at all equivalent to what you can get for free on AM/FM radio. Most people subscribe to satellite radio for exclusive content that is not available on AM/FM such as Howard Stern, and for commercial free music, which you also can't get on AM/FM, not to mention universal uninterrupted coverage of more than 100 channels covering North America from coast to coast. All of the above primary selling points of satellite radio cannot be had for free with AM/FM radio.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

I'm not saying it's equivalent, just that it's a "luxury". You can get audio entertainment, for free OTA. If you want the exclusive content and commercial free music with national coverage that satellite offers, that you'll pay extra for it. Like Ken said, it's not a luxury like owning a Porsche, but it is like the luxury of leather over fabric in your Camry or chrome wheels vs. stock rims on your Explorer. 

When the economy is tanking, it is luxuries like satellite radio that the average consumers will cut from (or not add to) their monthly budgets. To address this, they need to target the people with an appropriate level of disposable income. For example, my parents fit that market. They are semi-retired with adequate wealth to afford the subscription without a second thought. The problem is, they had a very vague idea about satellite radio, but not enough information to even be interested. Sirius/XM had failed to make them a "prospect". In fact, they weren't even "suspects" in sales terms. of course this was good for me - it gave me an opportunity for a thoughtful Christmas gift to give to them as "people who have everything and need nothing." They love it and they keep thanking me and saying they just don't understand why they never thought of this for themselves. 

So, when you have prospective customers out there that don't even realize they want your product, that is a very serious marketing problem.


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