Report: Sirius Radio prepares bankruptcy filing
Sirius XM Satellite Radio, the financially troubled radio service, is busy preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing, according to a published report.
Sirius, home of shock-jock Howard Stern, has been working with advisers on the bankruptcy documents that could be filed within days, according to The New York Times.
Sirius is staring at a significant debt crisis. According to a story that appeared on Yahoo finance, financial research firm, Moody's, "thinks there's a 'high likelihood' that Sirius will fail to repay or refinance its debt in 2009."
Sirius' debt comes due on Tuesday, according to the Times' story. The company may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to pressure Charles Ergen, the satellite-TV magnate who recently bought up most of Sirius' debt, to make a formal offer for the company, the Times reported.
If Ergen chooses to wait and Sirius files for bankruptcy, it might force him to obtain the company through an auction or bankruptcy court. Another alternative for Ergen is to convert his debt into an ownership stake, according to the report.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Either way it delayed the filing by giving the two a shot at surviving.
I can guarantee that the majority of subscribers joined to listen to commercial free music, a good variety of genre and talk, and an escape from the dribble we all get for free in the car.
Name me the day either one of these companies neared profitability, good times and bad. I should know, I watched my shares in each company dwindle down to pennies.
I was one of the first XM subscribers. I bought my XM radio about a month after the service launched. Sirius destroyed XM. And now I am an ex-Sirius-XM subscriber. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I joined to escape the drivel we all get free from the car; but now the drivel became part of XM except without commercials.
As angry as I am about the DJ's, another thing that made me angry was the rate hike. Anytime you pay more for the same level of service, it is a rate hike. Sirius-XM added a $2.95 monthly fee to listen to XM on-line. I swore that if Sirius-XM raised the rates, I would dump them. I swore this in the letter I sent to FCC asking them to approve this merger. I made good on my promise.
Bye bye Sirius-XM. We will be studying for years this merger on how NOT to successfully merge companies.
Sirius made a really dumb mistake buying XM and the US Congress should never have allowed it. The Canadian subsidiaries are still separate from each other and run semi-independently from the US parent, but they get all their programming from the US (besides the Canadian stations) so it's kind of like being between a rock and a hard place. I'm not sure if XM Canada is going to start charging for XMRO as well. They haven't sent me anything regarding that.
I just hope they can somehow keep it together or I've got three worthless recievers and lack of decent FM choices.
As a longtime Sirius customer, all I know is that the merger so far sucks, as far as I'm concerned. Good channels were eliminated, much more blabbering on music channels instead of just music, and the audio quality degraded.
This is the final slap in the face.
As far as not being a monopoly, saying Sirius/XM is not a monopoly is like saying the old Ma Bell wasn't a monopoly because you could also communicate with two cans and a string.
Terrestrial radio doesn't compete with satellite directly, and the reason I listen to Sirius and online streaming audio (when I'm not on the road) is because I would have to rip my limbs off if I were stuck with nothing but worthless, advertising-infested, corporate-homogenized terrestrial radio to listen to.
0+0=0. The geniuses at Sirius, XM, and Lehmen Brothers the underwriter, assured us that two money losing companies would be combined to create one profitable company. The mostly Dem pols who backed this: Anytime you see the words diverse, diversity, and underserved in the same paragraph you know the project will fail.
"Eleven members of Congress voiced their support for the Sirius-XM merger, in a letter addressed to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
The letter was signed by:
Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL), Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY).
"...the merger of Sirius and XM will create new opportunities for this type of diverse programming that has been overlooked by terrestrial-radio broadcasters. This merger will allow the companies to offer even more diverse content by consolidating programming and better utilizing capacity to offer even more unique and diverse programming to currently underserved populations."
TANSTAAFL!
Howard is funny, and Sirius has been his saviour. And to all you religious zealots, go judge yourself and put the spotlight on yourselves. Its so easy to criticize from your armchair, and when you cant even live up to your so called morals. You are the worst offending hypocrites and affect all those living in a negative way!
I have a Sirius subscription and havent noticed many negative changes after the merger. Some channel names may have changed, but the music is the same. Stop whining, and you get what you pay for...
Deton
What I'm seeing now is that same old tired songs being played over and over and over again. True story...for the past week...12 out of the 14 times I've turned my car on the same song was playing on the same channel.
So I switched channels thinking that a comedy channel would be better....I heard the same comedy bit twice once on my morning drive to work and the same one on my way home.
On top of that...Maxim radio is gone and whenever I select that channel I see the words (replay) next to whomever's show it is that's supposed to be on.
This is what happens when you let business dictate entertainment. People bought into satellite radio to get away from commercial am/fm drivel and what has happened is that they've managed to get an audience to pay for the blather that's on am/fm.
- by twyrick February 11, 2009 12:04 PM PST
- I never did purchase a satellite radio myself, because I always reasoned that I'd be better-served with an MP3 player and my own collection of music. No monthly fees, and I get to literally be my own DJ. Not only that, but assuming you keep MP3s encoded in a decent bit-rate, they sound far better than anything I've heard out of satellite radios. Their reception is much more like FM radio quality than "CD quality".
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (31 Comments)Personally? I think no matter what happens, *somebody* will step up to the plate and take over the satellite radio transmissions of Sirius. There's too much of an investment in the hardware floating around out there to just ignore it. (Many auto-makers finally started including Sirius radio receivers standard in new vehicles last year.) I just don't expect whatever happens will mean the listener gets an excellent choice in music or talk radio content. Since radio began, the most interesting content was broadcast by the smallest companies. The little guys with the illegal "pirate radio" stations often had the most unique music of all. Satellites are expensive to own and maintain, meaning only big companies are players in that arena ... and that virtually seals the fate of "fresh, unique and enjoyable content" coming from them. They inevitably get too interested in "metrics" - catering to the masses at the expense of originality.