Sirius-XM Merger Approved... (1 Viewer)

[aj]

I'm just hoping the MLB broadcasts will be available for Sirius soon

 

[jpcdolphan]

The new XM/Sirius will have the power to charge whatever they want very soon. I didn't know about that $500 for life deal. That's pretty good

They won't have that power (other than theoretically).

They will be a monopoly and thus will be on a much shorter leash. Plus, if they raise the prices too much more, customers will leave in droves. They are having a hard enough time reaching a critical mass of subscribers at the price points they are offering right now.

I'm really looking forward to the combined company...especially the a la carte deal!

 

[SaintMeaux]

Of course without competition, nothing is stopping them from charging a ton more a month

When this first became a topic of discussion, I recieved an e-mail from Sirius assuring me that the merger would lead to less expensive service.

I trust them, I'm sure they have my best interests in mind...

 

[jackers]

This is making my $500 for lifetime of service that I bought 4 years ago seem like one of the best purchases I've ever made.

I am totally with you there bro. I bought mine 4 years ago myself. It is now like the gift that keeps on giving. I recommend everyone jumping on the 500 bucks deal before the merge.

 

[llama]

I'm just hoping the MLB broadcasts will be available for Sirius soon

Me too! This is good news. Finally.

 

[Complex Kid]

I am totally with you there bro. I bought mine 4 years ago myself. It is now like the gift that keeps on giving. I recommend everyone jumping on the 500 bucks deal before the merge.

Do they even offer that deal anymore? I remember looking for it last time it was brought up but couldn't find anything.

 

[philipkw]

The new XM/Sirius will have the power to charge whatever they want very soon. I didn't know about that $500 for life deal. That's pretty good

Not sure where you're getting your info. They might "have the power" to charge what they want but when the merger was announced last year, Karmizan assured the DOJ that subscriptions would actually be less for many customers.

XM, Sirius planning new post-merger pricing options - Engadget

I do fear they might bite folks like me who didn't subscribe *primarily* for the music. I jumped on board for 2 things, Stern and the NFL. It's my understanding that, at minimum, Stern will be considered "premium" and not part of the a la carte plan. Not sure about the NFL. What I'm sort of expecting is that my subscription fee won't change much at all. I'll take the base a la carte music plan at a reduced rate but when I add in the premium stations (Stern, etc), it'll bump my monthly fee back to ~13/month which is current rate. We'll see.

Arlen Spector was on Stern last week assuring him that the decision would come at the end of March. Man, I thought he was blowing smoke. This is great news.

Now let's see the stock hit 7 or 8 bucks in the next few months!

 

[Jay In Buffalo]

Opie & Anthony and the NFL station?

No O&A? :jauhnny: No Subscription.

 

[Jonesy77]

Not sure where you're getting your info.

Economics 101

They "assured" the DOJ that subscriptions would go down? This is impossible for anyone to do monopoly or not. What if costs increase? Taxes? Penalties? Subscriptions decline, increasing marginal costs?

Now let me ask you this, mr. XM/Sirius CEO: If you can now charge $10/ month and have 500,000 subscribers, but by charging $20, only lose 100,000 subscribers, you'd be a fool not to, right?

That's how monopolies work. There is no competing force to keep that price as close to breakeven as possible.

The argument I've heard (and it might be a good one) is that terrestrial radio/yahoo launchcast/ipods keep them from being a monopoly, but I think its only a matter of time before terrestrial radio has to close down.

 

[Goatman Saint]

What part of the country do you live in? MT or CA?

You are right that terrestrial radio is generally putrid. But there are a few good independent radio stations around the country that have great playlists and great variety.

Ones I have experience with are WRNR in Annapolis MD (you can pull it in in parts of DC and in Baltimore), KFOG in San Francisco and WXRV in Boston.

http://www.wxrv.com/jobopenings.shtml
http://www.wrnr.com/

L.A. has some decent options too.

If had regular access to one of those Indie stations I might not get SatRad. But regular terrestrial is so bad that road trips are painful without Satellite.

Ironically, Clear Channel was one of the biggest investors in XM. And XM hired a proigramming chief from Clear Channel awhile back and after they did I felt like their music variety decreased a bit. Still better than regular radio though.

I live in the central valley in california. The town I live in sits in a valley, so it really gets poor service anyway. But as far as the choices, I get commercials from 7:45-8:00 every morning during the drive. Over half the stations are Spanish, and then you have easy listening and country stations. Blech. I also drive frequently to the coast and going through the mountians of course there is no radio. Just the choices I like. I love to be able to surf all those channels, especially the 60s and 80s. But all in all, I like a lot of different music and XM gives me that.

 

[robsmith32]

Economics 101

They "assured" the DOJ that subscriptions would go down? This is impossible for anyone to do monopoly or not. What if costs increase? Taxes? Penalties? Subscriptions decline, increasing marginal costs?

Now let me ask you this, mr. XM/Sirius CEO: If you can now charge $10/ month and have 500,000 subscribers, but by charging $20, only lose 100,000 subscribers, you'd be a fool not to, right?

That's how monopolies work. There is no competing force to keep that price as close to breakeven as possible.

The argument I've heard (and it might be a good one) is that terrestrial radio/yahoo launchcast/ipods keep them from being a monopoly, but I think its only a matter of time before terrestrial radio has to close down.

I think you're terribly underestimating terrestrial radio... they make mucho denero on advertising.. why, because the quantity of target audience listeners..
at least in Metro Markets. you have a ton of people that don't have satelite radio, granted many of those are jumping on IPOD, I used to have satellite, just right now it's not worth the 12 bucks a month to me. Local is fine.
metro atlantas major radio stations, have a good 60-100K listeners at rush hour each for given Genre.
compared to the 100k NATION WIDE for all of the satellite stations combined.
now, who's looking like the winner. especially, when clear channel, cumulus, cox, cbs, fox, own the majority of them accross the country... that's mega denero for them.
many people refuse to pay for something they can get for free... granted to me satelite at times is worth it.. especially 7am on sunday mornings..

BA, doesn't xm have like 5 blues channels and like 4 or 5 jazz?

 

[jpcdolphan]

Economics 101

They "assured" the DOJ that subscriptions would go down? This is impossible for anyone to do monopoly or not. What if costs increase? Taxes? Penalties? Subscriptions decline, increasing marginal costs?

Now let me ask you this, mr. XM/Sirius CEO: If you can now charge $10/ month and have 500,000 subscribers, but by charging $20, only lose 100,000 subscribers, you'd be a fool not to, right?

That's how monopolies work. There is no competing force to keep that price as close to breakeven as possible.

The argument I've heard (and it might be a good one) is that terrestrial radio/yahoo launchcast/ipods keep them from being a monopoly, but I think its only a matter of time before terrestrial radio has to close down.

It's not simply a matter of squeezing more money out of their existing subscribers. In order for this to work, they need to add new subscribers. If they are having a relatively tough time signing up new subscribers at the current price (granted, the uncertainty about the merger doubtless played a part in that), unreasonably increasing the price will make it that much tougher.

The "savings" for the average customer will come from the a la carte plan. One plan that has been speculated has been an option for 50 channels from the combined network for a fairly low price (7 dollars a month, I think). That would be a viable option for most people.

Now, the full package for the combined network will probably be a little higher than if you were to buy the full package on one network right now (Mel Karmazin has already indicated that). However, economics 101 dictates that there is only so high that they can go before they lose subscribers, not to mention missing out on new ones. We're not talking about a doubling of the price for all of the channels.

 

[philipkw]

Economics 101

They "assured" the DOJ that subscriptions would go down? This is impossible for anyone to do monopoly or not. What if costs increase? Taxes? Penalties? Subscriptions decline, increasing marginal costs?

Now let me ask you this, mr. XM/Sirius CEO: If you can now charge $10/ month and have 500,000 subscribers, but by charging $20, only lose 100,000 subscribers, you'd be a fool not to, right?

That's how monopolies work. There is no competing force to keep that price as close to breakeven as possible.

What you're not taking into account is that the infrastructure costs should decrease post-merger. Perhaps dramatically. Not sure what sort of impact it will have to the actual satellites but I would think that they could decommision some of them which would be a tremendous boost to the bottom line. That's pure speculation on my part. At minimum they can vacate the physical XM buildings in DC and layoff redundant staff.

Now you might be 100% correct in the long term. In most every business, there's the unforeseen. But you seemed to suggest in your earlier post that just by virtue of the merger they'll have a monopoly and therefore start sticking it to the subscribers. It's not going to go down like that.

Karmizan has made his bones in the communications business as a straight shooter. I just can't see him reversing course after making the assurances.

 

[efil4stnias]

Economics 101

They "assured" the DOJ that subscriptions would go down? This is impossible for anyone to do monopoly or not. What if costs increase? Taxes? Penalties? Subscriptions decline, increasing marginal costs?

Now let me ask you this, mr. XM/Sirius CEO: If you can now charge $10/ month and have 500,000 subscribers, but by charging $20, only lose 100,000 subscribers, you'd be a fool not to, right?

That's how monopolies work. There is no competing force to keep that price as close to breakeven as possible.

The argument I've heard (and it might be a good one) is that terrestrial radio/yahoo launchcast/ipods keep them from being a monopoly, but I think its only a matter of time before terrestrial radio has to close down.

but this will not be a monopoly. Thats what the DOJ was trying to figure out and they did. Satellite radio competes on so many other forms of in car entertainment today. Its nothing to get your Ipod, MP3 player , cd's etc to play in car. Plus your car comes equipped to receive AM and FM broadcast at no extra charge. Just like your TV at home.

Now what Terrestrial radio has to do IMO, is start getting back to substance in programming. I dont want to hear 18 min of commercials and 6 min of music and 6 min of talking. Thats why I bought Sirius in 2004. I havent listened to "free radio" since then. The content is boring. So what this MAY do is SPUR the competiton onto better content, better radio which is a win/win for everyone. The monopoly you described was terrestrial radio up until yesterday.

 

[blackadder]

I live in the central valley in california. The town I live in sits in a valley, so it really gets poor service anyway. But as far as the choices, I get commercials from 7:45-8:00 every morning during the drive. Over half the stations are Spanish, and then you have easy listening and country stations. Blech. I also drive frequently to the coast and going through the mountians of course there is no radio. Just the choices I like. I love to be able to surf all those channels, especially the 60s and 80s. But all in all, I like a lot of different music and XM gives me that.

I was listening this morning I noticed that XM defintely rejiggered their playlists. I used to listen to "Fred" a lot. It was kind of a "Classic alternative" station.

Fred had a great mix of stuff from the 70s to the early 90s. Went really really deep and did not play just "hits" but also more obscure stuff.

Well, that's over. I think it started changing just about the time they brough in the former Clear Channel programming executive. Shocking.

Now it's more of a "greatest alternative hits" with a lot of what was mainstream techno pop.

Clear Channel ruins everything it touches.