SIRIUS - Revenue Up 51% to $226.4 Million- Company Exceeds 7.1 Million Subscribers-

The Stern effect is alive and well.

Thats great.... awesome news for Sirius.... hopefully the merger helps...

awaiting the inevitable PAt6366 post

While this is a Sirius thread and I have it, what about XM?

Nice!

Forgive me but I'm going to play devil's advocate here:

1) Both companies freely admit now they are depending heavily on OEM( car installs) sales. Last quarter Sirius OEM installs were 434,955 out of the 561,493 sub additions. How can we credit the 'Stern Effect' to OEM installs?

2) Of those 434,955 OEM installs.. How many are unsold cars?

BTW before everyone attacks me I agree OEM installs are the way to go for both companies.

You can't from just the OEM installation data. To get a better idea you would need to know the number of new car purchasers who then elect to re-up after their free trial is over. With that data you then would need to make some assumptions about why they decided to re-up. But you knew that already, didn't you?

I've been a long time subscriber and have been with both systems. I've never been polled by either company as to my favorites. I'll bet they estimate stream ratings by our on-line listening habits on their web services because tracking there is automatic.

After 6-months of A La Carte sales, what's popular and what's not when there is a dollar implication will become very obvious.

Yes, I did know that. But I am,after all, playing devil's advocate.

But still if 400k of the 500k are OEM installs for the quarter, the 100K retail sales shows us that the retail market is almost dead in the water. It tells me when people are going to CC or BB they're looking at Ipods, etc. , not satellite radio equipment.

Barb the stern effect has been talked to death,
you either believe it's real, or you don't.
I've seen countless number of posts here and other places that name stern the reason they have Sat Radio. hardly ever is anyone else mentioned.
Stern is by far the biggest radio personality on either xm or sirius. in business name recognition is huge, and stern has it.

there is no other way to explain why sirius now owns every QQQ since stern signed on.

I'm not arguing that Merc. I'm just talking about this PAST quarter. 100k retail sales in NOT good.

I think retail sales will suffer until after this merger mess is finished!

That's a good point. You could be right.

I would think that Sirius is hoping that the additions are not due to Stern, but instead due to some of the other programming they have invested in. It would be kinda scary to have all eggs in one basket like that.

I'd put less emphasis on the increase in number of subscribers, and look at the 51% increase in revenue.

That's impessive. And correct me if I am wrong, but these OEM radios get between 1 and 3 years of free service right? But still seeing all this revenue.

Another good stat is the extremely LOW churn rate. I mean that churn rate is in the noise. That tells you that those that have Sirius, are keeping it, even after the free trial is over.

don't take this as a personal dig on Stern, but his ability to attract new subscribers has waned considerably. after the initial "surge" when he made the jump, he has faded into relative obscurity. the awareness of Stern among the general public has dropped like a rock compared to his days on terrestrial radio. this is mostly due to the fact the satellite radio hasn't become what many of us thought it would. he simply isn't talking to nearly enough people.

the fact remains that neither company has ever made a profit, and are still bleeding tens of millions of dollars a month. the uncertainty now about the merge is making things worse. they need to get it done and focus on making the new company profitable. its clear they can't rely on Howard to save them.

Explain why Sirius continuous to outpace xm every Quarter.

well, there could be a lot of reasons this is happening...better marketing, more new car sales with sirius pre-installed, other exclusive sirius content, poor marketing on XM's part, etc. of course howard is one of those reasons, i'm just saying his greatest impact on the market came and went when he made the jump.

he has essentially disappeared from the public view by being heard exclusively on only one half of what is a tiny market segment (entertainment via satellite radio). to say that he is the main reason sirius is doing marginally better than XM doesn't make a lot of sense when you stop cheerleading look at it objectively.

The NFL?

and Nascar

G-star Of course his greatest impact of between 1-2 million have already purchased. Like I said above, I read countless of threads where Stern is the only reason they have Sat radio. and these people came over way after stern came aboard. Also Stern is the face of Sat Radio(along with music and sports). If a stern fan who did not come over with the initial surge, don't you think if given a choice they will pick sirius over xm because of stern? and that number of slow comers could be upwards of 5 million! I don't need to cheerlead as the numbers don't lie.

as far as marketing, how about Oprah? How about O&A who can be heard for free in 30 markets? or MLB where XM banners fly in every stadium(168 games a year)! you cant get better marketing then that! not to mention xm's better technology and superior playlist!

It would have been great for all XMers and O&Aers if Sterns surge lasted 1 or 2 QQQ so you all could come online and rub it in. but that didnt happen, so instead you'll throw every other reason at it and see what sticks.

G-star this is just the way I see it.

No!

Yes

that's fine if you see it that way, but its pretty clear that your opinions are influenced by drinking the proverbial Howie kool-aid.

nothing...not the NFL, Howard, O&A, Oprah, MLB, Nascar, Bob Dylan, you name it....has been able to make either one of these companies profitable. relatively small increases in quarterly revenue are great, whatever the reason, but it is clear these companies need to merge and get on more stable financial ground. 18 months later, even the "face of satellite radio" couldn't get it done.

Well G-star how did i know trying to have an intellectual conversation with an O&A fan would turn into the usual baby ass comments......

lol... this is so funny.... it doesnt matter... if this merger doesnt happen... one of these companies will not survive

Yet another thread gets O&A dragged into it by a Howie fan

Its Howard Stern not Howie!

or is that just another cute little catch phrase used to try and entice me.

I thought J.H. was the only one that got upset by that.