Jim & Sam (Plus Rest of SiriusXM) Lose 94K Satellite Radio Subscribers

[guest]

The sales call they made to me when mine ran out was terrible. Some urban gentleman who sounded like he’d never used a phone before basically begging and then trying to force me to buy the service that lets me use it on my phone.

Urban? You mean a nigger?

 

[BrotherMan1488]

Heres why I think SXM still exists:

Early on in it’s existence it’s focus was on ad free music. Uncensored talk existed but it wasn’t pulling big advertisers. It’s main revenue source was subscribers.

They quickly realized that wasn’t profitable. It’s hard to justify charging people for audio when the radio or shit on your phone is free. So knowing their subscriber base is going to continue to dwindle they pivot to advertisers being their main revenue source

Since they can’t get rid of their main selling point, ad free music, they have to hire a bunch of wholesome celebrities everyone knows. This makes the advertisers come because these are big names with (what they presume are) large audiences. This means they not only have more advertisers but can charge more for spots.

And I wouldn’t doubt that their advertiser increase has brought in more revenue for them than any jump in subscribers. Now its just about walking a fine line to make sure people don’t unsub too much and scare off the advertisers.


Theres a difference between a promotional subscriber and a paid promotional subscriber. A promotional subscriber is one of those “Get your first month off free!” things where it truly is no cost to the consumer. The second, and what you are referencing, is a “free subscription”…only because the car company you’re buying from paid for the subscription for you.

1. Even if there are more promotional subscribers than paid, this inflated number can be used to draw advertisers in and have them pay more for spots on perceived listeners
2. The Compound Media trick where you don’t let your subs cancel. SXM just got hit with a huge lawsuit by the NYAG for this exact practice.

Could you imagine actually needing to launder money SiriusXM and modern Art is a huge scam , did you know Eminem and Oprah do like one show a year mabey if they feel like it

 

[Jims_Maroon_Pants]

Meanwhile they shut down Stitcher for literally no reason.

There's no way this $100M figure is anywhere near truthful.

Stitcher was good back in the day, but when they decided to charge a monthly fee that thousands of other apps do for free they can suck my ass and I'm glad they are gone

 

[Jims_Maroon_Pants]

Oddly, they have a better business model than streaming-only.

2022 net income
Spotify: -$453 million
SXM: $1.21 billion

How? Spotify is global, Sirius is USA and Canada

 

[The Sue Deal]

How? Spotify is global, Sirius is USA and Canada

Spotify doesn’t pull the same amount of ad revenue and doesn’t charge nearly as much for subscriptions. Hell you don’t even need a subscription to use Spotify.

Also the royalties for streaming services are much more costly. Even though the amount per stream is so low, multiply that by every song and artist on the entirety of Spotify. Now consider every user who uses Spotify for free is basically draining money from the company, forcing them to pay royalties at literally no cost to the consumer.

Then consider Spotify is offering the exact same ridiculous 9 figure deals to host Podcasts that don’t pull in as much advertisers as the ones on SXM do.

 

[Josef Kuminski]

Spotify doesn’t pull the same amount of ad revenue and doesn’t charge nearly as much for subscriptions. Hell you don’t even need a subscription to use Spotify.

Also the royalties for streaming services are much more costly. Even though the amount per stream is so low, multiply that by every song and artist on the entirety of Spotify. Now consider every user who uses Spotify for free is basically draining money from the company, forcing them to pay royalties at literally no cost to the consumer.

Then consider Spotify is offering the exact same ridiculous 9 figure deals to host Podcasts that don’t pull in as much advertisers as the ones on SXM do.

The only incentive to subscribe to SXM is living in rube country where cell service might be shitty. Their content is stale and their model is outdated. They threw 150 million at Conan post prime. More multi-million dollar deal to Your Moms house and no real view of future, post Stern. They are legit 5-10 years behind the curve.

 

[BonnieMcFarlaneMe2]

Could you imagine actually needing to launder money SiriusXM and modern Art is a huge scam , did you know Eminem and Oprah do like one show a year mabey if they feel like it

I think it’s more that they just have channels named after them. I wonder what they’re going to do with Kevin Hart.

 

[Queefer Sutherland]

How? Spotify is global, Sirius is USA and Canada

Global is meaningless when half the world lives on $2 a day and won't be target demographics for high ad rates.

 

[Queefer Sutherland]

For those who said money laundering, you're on the right track. Liberty Media owns SXM and Ticketmaster/Live Nation. They also sought a majority stake in iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel), the largest terrestrial radio company, but eventually sold everything off...

Liberty Media Sells Entire iHeartMedia Stake, Ending Bid to Build Media Conglomerate

Liberty Media has concluded its venture into the broadcast radio industry, selling its entire stake in iHeartMedia.

variety.com

 

[Zeroman]

The only thing Sirius did correctly was ban Nana from entering the building ever again.

 

[SpitballSparky]

I finally dropped my sub at the beginning of the year after being a subscriber since the early XM days.

It had gotten absurdly expensive and there's just far better/cheaper options for podcasts and music now.

Genuinely impressive that you made it around 20 years.

Did you have to do that fucking asinine "cancellation dance" where you have to have a four-hour phone call with a Filipino in order to drop the service? I've heard horror stories about how they make it so damn hard to get rid of the thing since they know that if they made it easy to opt out, a lot more people would head for the fucking doors...

 

[lowend73]

Do you think Jim's wife already got a severance on his package? Discuss.

Jim is married to a man

 

[guest]

Jim is married to a man

Do you think Jim's wife (this part of the sentence illustrates that I will be talking about Jim's wife)

Already got a severance (severance is a synonym for something being cut off)

On his package (the pronoun "he" is establishing that Jim Norton's wife is really a man and the word package can be a double entender for a penis)

Instead of saying LOL do you think Jim's husband got his pee pee cut off, I chose to go the more subtle route and bring up the severance package that the previous user had posted to make my joke.

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

I’d love to know how much they wasted on building Stern his own private entrance only to have him barely leave his house for the past 4 years. I really think he’s only been in the studio maybe 3 times since Covid started and that was because he had a big guest who refused to get up early and go into the studio only to talk to him through a computer screen.

Bruce Springsteen is a douche but it was funny after so many tries to get him on the show over the years he finally agrees but only if Stern comes in. Also - after all that he promoted a dopey covers album that everyone quickly forgot. I’m guessing that was a bad week for the wig man.

 

[CorradoSoprano4]

Genuinely impressive that you made it around 20 years.

Did you have to do that fucking asinine "cancellation dance" where you have to have a four-hour phone call with a Filipino in order to drop the service? I've heard horror stories about how they make it so damn hard to get rid of the thing since they know that if they made it easy to opt out, a lot more people would head for the fucking doors...

It can't be as bad as trying to unsubscribe from compound media though.

 

[FezzieAlwaysWins]

Genuinely impressive that you made it around 20 years.

Did you have to do that fucking asinine "cancellation dance" where you have to have a four-hour phone call with a Filipino in order to drop the service? I've heard horror stories about how they make it so damn hard to get rid of the thing since they know that if they made it easy to opt out, a lot more people would head for the fucking doors...

I kept it for the live news and sports programming for when I'm driving out of cell internet range, but the costs just got ridiculous

They surprisingly didn't give me any trouble cancelling- other than having to call and sit on hold with the operator.

 

[SpitballSparky]

Let’s play some car crash sound effects for the sad boys and girls at the satellite radio company. Tough day for them as the lay off 3% of their company.

SiriusXM to Lay Off 160 Employees, About 3% of Workforce

SiriusXM is eliminating about 160 jobs, a layoff affecting just under 3% of the satellite radio and audio streamer's workforce.

variety.com