The Audiophiliac

How's the Sirius XM satellite radio monopoly working out for subscribers? Not so well. Now that Sirius XM is the only game in town, it's nudging up fees for subscribers. Nice!

The one and only satellite radio company's boasts of its ever-increasing subscriber base are gone now, and the decline is significant. The number floating around the Internet is a loss of 400,000 subscribers. That still leaves 18.6 million, but there's no way of knowing how many of that number are full-price-paying subscribers.

Could the subscriber losses be attributed to recent price hikes? The family plan package went from $6.99 to $8.99 a month and there's a monthly $2.99 fee to receive Sirius XM stations over the Internet. That service was previously free.

Back in March of last year I asked who was going to pay for the merger, and now we know. We've lost favorite channels and pay more for the service. So please explain why the merger was such a swell idea?

And what about Howard Stern? His megabucks contract is nearing its end; can Sirius XM hang on to the former terrestrial radio god now that he's faded into near oblivion? Hunkered down on satellite radio, Stern's visibility ain't what it used to be.

But if the 2 million Stern fans paid an extra $2 a month for the privilege of hearing his semi-daily genius, would that help Sirius XM show its first-ever profit?

Over the past year or so, Sirius' signal quality has worsened. Again, the post-merger performance woes are widespread. My Sirius signals have improved somewhat in the last two months, but I still experience signal dropouts lasting a few seconds several times a day.

How about you?

Related story:

Sirius XM's net loss widens as sales rise

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

No matter how you look at it, Sirius XM Satellite Radio is in sad shape. The stock has been stuck around 11 cents for months, and now there's talk about bankruptcy.

I don't get it, the satellite company claims 19 million subscribers, and if they were paying the same rate as I do, $12.95 a month, that works out to close to $3 billion a year in income. They also have ads on all the nonmusic channels, which have to be generating income as well. Oh, wouldn't you think the ads on Howard Stern's show make a load of dough for Sirius XM?

I've heard that EchoStar, a maker of TV set-top boxes, is trying to take over the company. but Sirius XM is holding tight.

So if Howard Stern loves Sirius XM so much, why doesn't he buy it? If he can't swing it solo, maybe he could team up with other Sirius XM heavyweights like Oprah and Martha Stewart to keep the satellites afloat.

Stern's fans are a rabid group, and they believe Stern is in large part for the company's "success." Hey, if he's not interested in taking over the debt, maybe he could work for free for the duration of his contract. Relieved of the burden of paying Stern's hefty salary would free up capital and keep the company out of bankruptcy. He's already made hundreds of millions of dollars from Sirius; isn't it time to give something back?

Everyday working stiffs are being forced to accept givebacks and pay cuts to help save the companies they work for. Isn't it time that silly rich stars like Stern do the same? If he refuses to work for free, he could at least show up more often--Stern works four days a week--and gets 10 (!) weeks of vacation a year!

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Sirius Satellite Radio has a lot on its plate. Shock jock Howard Stern is already making noises about leaving after his contract expires in a couple of years, the stock price is in the tank, and the company has huge debt.

All of that shouldn't matter to subscribers, of which I am one. But the frequent signal dropouts are really getting out of hand.

I had similar problems in the early days, but after a while, the dropouts became rare. Months would go by without signal interruptions, but about six months ago, the off-and-on signal problems returned.

Sometimes, the dropout lasts just a few seconds but occurs many times an hour. My Sirius home radio hasn't budged since I first got it many years ago, and my antenna is pretty much in the same place it has always been, but lately, the signal regularly disappears for minutes at a time before sputtering back to life.

UPDATE! (November 19, 9:59 AM PST) Sirius Disorder fans take note: Vin Scelsa announced on his 11/19 Idiot's Delight show on The Loft (Sirius Disorder's replacement channel) that Meg Griffin will soon return to do her thing on The Loft (yes, she's currently on The Spectrum). Vin also noted that David Johansen's show will be back. The Lou Reed and Hal Wilner show is headed back as well. All will appear on The Loft. Maybe our protests were heard!

As a Sirius Satellite Radio subscriber, I received an e-mail on Wednesday "Announcing The New Sirius Channel Lineup" that confirmed my worst fears about the Sirius-XM merger.

That is, the inevitable cost savings would impact me personally. My favorite music channel, Sirius Disorder, is history, replaced with the near DJ-less The Loft. It seems rather bland, and I really do miss Disorder's morning guy, Ghosty, as well as afternoon host Meg Griffin.

Hey, Sirius has to keep forking over those hefty paychecks to Howard Stern, and somebody has to pay for it.

There's a lot more changes across the range of programming, and some great XM channels are now on Sirius.

If you're not getting the new lineup, or you're a little dazed and confused, here's how Sirius recommends catching up:

Please note that when you turn on your radio for the first time on or after November 12, it may need 2 (to) 5 minutes to receive the update from our satellites.

During this time, the audio you hear may not match what is shown on your display, and you may see messages such as "updating channels." While the radio updates, please do not change channels, as this will delay the update.

I know it's still early, and we are just starting to grasp the changes, but I'd love to hear Sirius and XM subscribers' views on the shake-up. Is it good for you? BTW, the Sirius-XM stock is now 25 cents (down from a 52-week high of $3.94), so please remind me why the merger was such a great idea.

Oh, anybody know if Howard Stern still has any stock? He was such a big booster of Sirius, wasn't he?

I read Matt Rosoff's Digital Noise blog all the time, and his recent lamenting radio's irrelevance hit me hard.

I think Matt was mostly referring to AM or FM radio, but what about Internet or satellite radio? Me, I'm still a die hard Sirius subscriber and listen to Left of Center, Sirius Disorder, and Underground Garage channels many hours a day. They turn me onto new music all the time, so I buy an average of two CDs a week.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Of course, now that the hoopla over the Siriius/XM merger has died down and the stock price hovers around fifty cents, it seems like the stockholders don't have that strong a belief in the future of satellite radio. Or maybe they finally realized there are not enough people willing to pay $12.95 a month for commercial-free radio to make Sirius, er, profitable? Gee, I wonder if Howard Stern is the only one to score big bucks in the satellite radio biz? Did he cash out his Sirius stock long ago?

As for AM/FM terrestrial radio music stations, the audience for non-oldies music is too small to support commercial stations anymore. Matt's observation, "But apart from college radio, nobody's playing cutting-edge rock and roll with potentially broad appeal," rings true to me. Too bad.

Hey, MTV gave up on music long ago, let's face it, when the youth market isn't all that interested in music, music's future looks pretty dim. And it's not the big, bad record labels fault, no, music's appeal is fading. Then again, when you're not paying for music, it proves it's not worth anything. No wonder even "free" music on the radio can't hold its own anymore. It's worth less than zero...

Do you listen to music over AM, FM, Sirius, or Internet radio?

I first became a huge Howard Stern fan when he was on WNBC here in New York. This was back in the early 1980s when he radically advanced the state of the art of humor on the radio. Despite his huge ratings he had endless clashes with the NBC brass, which led to his firing. Clearly, the hostile environment wasn't a radio "bit," it was real. Stern was always keeping it real. It was all such compelling radio Stern based his biopic movie, "Private Parts," mostly on that time period.

After the NBC canning the self-proclaimed "King of All Media" moved to another NYC station, WXRK, where he was more comfortable and still amazingly funny.

I'd say he jumped the shark when he divorced his wife Alison in 2001. After all of those years of lusting after his female guests he was a free man. Some male listeners expected to be in on Stern's exploits as a single man, but he clammed up. Or maybe it was when his head writer and sidekick Jackie Martling left the show, also in 2001. The energy level dropped a few more points.

If he didn't jump the shark after those losses, Stern surely did after the move to Sirius Satellite Radio. Great, he was rich and uncensored, but the edge was completely gone. To me at least, he seems like he'd rather be somewhere else, enjoying his wealth. He's in his 50s, and the shock jock schtick is wearing thin.

What do you think? Does Stern still have it or has his talent faded away?

It seems like the Sirius-XM merger been dragging on for years, and both sides are eager to get it done, but what would I get out of it? I've been a happy Sirius subscriber for years. I love the commercial-free music channels, and the uninhibited talk channels are hugely entertaining. At least maybe Sirius' sound quality will get closer to XM's--it's always sounded a little better.

They still need approval from the Federal Communications Commission before the deal is done. If you ask me, it seems anticompetitive to let the only two satellite-radio companies in the U.S. merge. Both companies' subscriber bases are at record highs, but both claim they need the merger to survive. They've both far exceeded the numbers they claimed they needed to be profitable when they started.

Sirius must be overpaying Howard Stern--because even with all the new subscribers he brought them, they're still losing money. He's sucking the profits out of Sirius--perhaps Stern should consider a pay cut to help them out? He can afford it more than his listeners.

What does the merger mean for satellite radio subscribers? There's a lot of duplication between Sirius and XM's programming so we'll surely lose some of our favorite programs or channels. There will no doubt be winners and losers in the reshuffle.

But without Sirius-XM competition how long will the merged company wait before they stick it to the subscribers and jack up the rates? Yes, some say the merged company will still be competing with broadcast radio, but isn't that like saying movie theater ticket prices are somehow kept in check by DVD prices? Somebody's gotta pay for the Sirius-XM merger, and I have a feeling that somebody is us.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Don't get me wrong, I love Sirius' programming, but I hate the sound. It's grungy, harsh, with no actual high frequencies and muddy bass. The music's dynamics are squashed flat as Kansas so it sounds like a low bit MP3. Digital smigital, Sirius sounds awful, way worse than FM radio.

Ah, but the on-air talent, well, it's better than anything on commercial AM or FM, by a long shot. The fire-breathing Liberal political talk channel, "Sirius Left," crushes its ever lamer terrestrial radio counterpart, Air America, and you conservatives can feast on the Sirius Patriot channel. For everybody else, there's Howard Stern, Martha Stewart and NASCAR.

The Jay Thomas Show blows Howard away; he's on the Sirius Stars channel. Jay's show mixes current events and politics with beauty queens and all sorts of wackos. Jay's a really funny guy.

On the music side I'm a huge fan of Sirius Disorder, their all mixed up, rock, alternate, jazz, world, whatever channel. The morning DJ, Ghosty, is an odd duck, and David Johansen (he of the New York Dolls) serve up wildly disorganized shows. Over on the Underground Garage channel, Andrew Loog Oldham (the Rolling Stones first producer) spews trivia and fascinating stories amidst spinning Nancy Sinatra, the Ramones, Radiohead, Muddy Waters with music from the fifties to the present. Looking for uncensored rap and hip hop, reggae, blues, country, jazz, world music--Sirius is probably playing it, without commercials. Point is, if you have eclectic taste, Sirius has the tunes.

But squeezing so many channels through a limited bandwidth pipe, the sound suffers. Maybe, just maybe if the XM/Sirius merger goes through the combined bandwidth will give us better sound. I've got my fingers crossed.