SiriusXm loses more than 404k subs....
- Thread starter sodomite
- Start date
Wow
I think it's just the economy. Even I couldn't renew my Sirius sub in my Dodge. But I had to keep my home radio.
They're losing income because of:
1) The economy. Until it recovers, people don't have the disposable income they once did. I'd bet that with all of the people who are cutting back on things, their extra subscriptions are probably one of the first to go. They may have had a radio for the car and a seperate one for the office. Now, they may just have one in the office that they take back and forth.
2) P2P and illegal broadcasting. People may think they're doing a good thing by uploading the content, but really, they're hurting the company. If someone can get the show for free online, then what incentive is there to subscribe? For every person that downloads off the internet, that's at least $12.95 a month that SiriusXM is missing out on.
3) The car dealerships going under. Sirius counts subscriptions before the car is actually sold, right? Well, if the car companies are making less cars, then that's fewer subscriptions, but more honesty in their counting.
If i'm a sports team and I announce my attendance as "tickets distributed", then I could announce 67,210. In reality, maybe only 57,810 people show up to that game.
OTOH, if the car dealership failures force SiriusXM to be a little more honest with announcing subscriber counts, that could help the company in the long term. Suppose Sirius has 12 million individual subscribers, but a total of 18 million active radios, with an additional 3 million cars unsold. Would the investors be happier hearing 12 million subscribers, 18 million subscribers, or 21 million subscribers?
4) Call me crazy, but I don't think the music (playlists, dj's) has anything to do with it. If you subscribe for any of the talk or sports, they still count you just the same.
1) The economy. Until it recovers, people don't have the disposable income they once did. I'd bet that with all of the people who are cutting back on things, their extra subscriptions are probably one of the first to go. They may have had a radio for the car and a seperate one for the office. Now, they may just have one in the office that they take back and forth.
2) P2P and illegal broadcasting. People may think they're doing a good thing by uploading the content, but really, they're hurting the company. If someone can get the show for free online, then what incentive is there to subscribe? For every person that downloads off the internet, that's at least $12.95 a month that SiriusXM is missing out on.
3) The car dealerships going under. Sirius counts subscriptions before the car is actually sold, right? Well, if the car companies are making less cars, then that's fewer subscriptions, but more honesty in their counting.
If i'm a sports team and I announce my attendance as "tickets distributed", then I could announce 67,210. In reality, maybe only 57,810 people show up to that game.
OTOH, if the car dealership failures force SiriusXM to be a little more honest with announcing subscriber counts, that could help the company in the long term. Suppose Sirius has 12 million individual subscribers, but a total of 18 million active radios, with an additional 3 million cars unsold. Would the investors be happier hearing 12 million subscribers, 18 million subscribers, or 21 million subscribers?
4) Call me crazy, but I don't think the music (playlists, dj's) has anything to do with it. If you subscribe for any of the talk or sports, they still count you just the same.
Its more than just the economy. They have no money to spend on advertising, very little "new" equipment out and the merger basically amounted to a lazy one. Just not enough good things going on with Sirius.
Anyone that didn't expect a large number of defections are kidding themselves. The only subs sticking around are the die-hards. And thats not going to get it done.
Anyone that didn't expect a large number of defections are kidding themselves. The only subs sticking around are the die-hards. And thats not going to get it done.
3) You don't think Sirius notices this important fact? Sirius is not just for the car. They need to do a MUCH better job at getting a better signal for people in their homes.
Dodge is going bankrupt, GM is cutting back operations and aren't far behind Dodge in BK court. That's the main reason right there. I also think a lot of it does have to do with the content. It makes you wonder how many of those 404k were former XM subscribers who were around for the heyday who saw their favorite format flushed down the toilet.
You can get Howard 100 and Howard 101 on Shoutcast. All you have to do is Search 'Howard Stern' and there are three channels there. O&A and Ron and Fez are on Audible for a price, and torrents for free. And Oprah is on TV all the time and almost never promotes her channel on SiriusXM.
You can get Howard 100 and Howard 101 on Shoutcast. All you have to do is Search 'Howard Stern' and there are three channels there. O&A and Ron and Fez are on Audible for a price, and torrents for free. And Oprah is on TV all the time and almost never promotes her channel on SiriusXM.
I think the iPhone app coming out will help a ton though. But that's more than I would have thought. Things on our end seem like business is picking up again.
A lot of people may have Slacker AND SiriusXM. There's still a lot of stuff which is SiriusXM-exclusive. At the end of the day, that doesn't really matter to Sirius. Sure, they'd like people to be Sirius-exclusive, but if they only listen to Sirius for a couple hours a day and use something else for their music, that doesn't really matter.
There are people out there who download Sirius programs without subscribing. I don't think anyone can deny it. That's more than likely hurting the company.
Agreed with the first part. The less money Sirius has coming in means the less money they have to advertise.
Sirius doesn't really make a lot of money on the equipment anyway, do they? What they need is 2-3 PnP radios (including something non-boomboxy like the Tivoli), and 1-2 different portable ones. Unfortunately, they probably have a lot of pre-merger radios which they just can't "not sell."
It takes time to get this new stuff cranked out. We have the MiRGE, and that's just the beginning of something new. It'll take time and patience.
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Lots of competition for less subscribers. People may not get a SL2 and a G2 now. Sirius XM has to put itself as something people want to get. For the last 2 years they have been ignoring this (the retail market) and putting all their eggs in the OEM basket. Well, OEM market is gone right now and so is this stream of subs. They need to get back to making retail work. The OEM stuff will just be gravy.
With merged programming, many dual subscribers had an option to drop their Sirius or XM. New subscribers appears to have gone stale. If they continue to lose current subscribers, will get worse.
I'd also add:
Dual-subs who realized that since the combined company combined channels, essentially, there's no reason to up the subscription on one or the other and just let the current sub finish out.
I'd think that their presence in the stores is also hurting them. In the stores I see them in (Best Buy, Walmart) it looks like they're an after-thought product (like not on clearance but soon).
I still think they have a basic problem with the products on the shelves, and this has been going on for years, where all of the PNP boxes look like those items you'd pick up at Radio Shack. You know - the items that may do something neat/clever but the product itselfs really isn't all that appealing (not attractive).
Dual-subs who realized that since the combined company combined channels, essentially, there's no reason to up the subscription on one or the other and just let the current sub finish out.
I'd think that their presence in the stores is also hurting them. In the stores I see them in (Best Buy, Walmart) it looks like they're an after-thought product (like not on clearance but soon).
I still think they have a basic problem with the products on the shelves, and this has been going on for years, where all of the PNP boxes look like those items you'd pick up at Radio Shack. You know - the items that may do something neat/clever but the product itselfs really isn't all that appealing (not attractive).
And this will be a gain for Slacker because I see those people going their for music and better playlists. Also if the company goes downhill more , we may have commercials on music channels.
I wonder how many of those cancellations are because of the economic situation and the need to trim the bills? I'm seriously considering canceling one of my radios just to trim some bills now.
I think not so many are because of this, because I called in twice the last 6 months to turn my last radio off, the Sirius Rep on has offered my free 3 months until I can figure out if I can come up with the cash to pay again. And I do plan on actually paying for my sub when time comes to renew in June. But it seems Sirius has been doing everything to give out free subs to people who are looking to cancel their sub due to loss of a job. The rep asked me why I was cancelling, when I told her it was because I didn't have the money nor a job at the moment, she said she was sorry adn that was the case with over half of america it seems, and she understands.
I jokingly said "I hope you don't end up in that boat soon, too" and she laughed and said "I hope not either, but you never know these days. But I think I'm okay for now. How about I give you 3 more months on us until you can get in better financial shape?" or something to that effect. Said it was appreciated I was a paying customer for over a year, and that I obviously liked the service. So I think 90% of people calling to cancel for that reason got the same treatment, I hope. So it may be dual subs or just lack of interest in music that killed their sub count.
I believe the churn will be even worse next quarter. I'm a dual sub, and after the merger I didn't see any reason to keep both services. When I called to cancel Sirius gave me 3 months free. I plan to cancel at the end of the 3 months. I'm thinking there will be many others like me who will also cancel.
I kind of wonder if SXM hasn't resigned to the idea that the subscriber potential has been tapped out....the days of seeing hundreds of thousands subscribers jumping on board per quarter are behind us. And the idea now is instead of trying to attract new subscribers do all they can to rake in the revenue from the current subscribers and that's why we saw the increase in multi-sub rates and internet access. But what seems to have happened is it's having a reciprocal effect.
Of course it doesn't help that there's not much buzz going about the product, and I wonder if that hasn't been caused by the merger. It used to be when XM came out with a radio, and then Sirius would come out with something....or when Sirius would sign programming content, or XM would, it got people talking about satellite radio. Seems like a lot of that went away after the 2 services joined forces.
Of course it doesn't help that there's not much buzz going about the product, and I wonder if that hasn't been caused by the merger. It used to be when XM came out with a radio, and then Sirius would come out with something....or when Sirius would sign programming content, or XM would, it got people talking about satellite radio. Seems like a lot of that went away after the 2 services joined forces.