Re: [Swprograms] PRI Gone from Sirius

[Joseph Buch <joseph.buch@xxxxxxx>]

At 09:34 AM 09/26/2006, you wrote:

>Does everything have to be treated like some state secret?  If Sirius lost the contract, why not just say so?  If 
>they decided to go in a different direction, why not just explain 
>why?  
>
>John Figliozzi

John,

Did Macy's tell Gimbels?  This is a competition.  For SIRIUS to announce in advance what they were going to do could only help the competition at best and overload the in box with protests at worst.  So they just do it and see if anybody complains or unsubscribes.  My guess is that the overwhelming majority of present subscribers will hang on evn if abused because they cannot switch without buying new radios or they are in long term contracts.  In the case of dashboard-embedded radios installed in the car as an OEM option, that would be too hard.  As the long term contracts expire and folks elect to not renew, the climbing churn rate will not be attributable to any single event but will be blamed on economic conditions, falling new vehicle purchases, declining home prices eroding the wealth effect, etc.

I have been observing this DBS industry since a couple years before the first launch.  I made some money on both competitors' stock back in the days when everything was speculation and glowing press releases.  When the incompetence of SIRIUS management became clear to me I dumped out of that one.  I chuckled the other morning as Don Imus ruminated over the fact that he was under water on his Sirius investment.  Once it became clear that XM and SIRIUS were eventually going to eat each other's lunch, I also dumped out of XM at a nice profit.

I believe these two companies are in a race to the bottom of the barrel because they are being driven by the same numbers game that is driving commercial terrestrial broadcasters.  They have abandoned their lofty goals of proving a diverse choice of ideas and musical formats to instead simply trying to attract the most listeners.  Quality be damned.  Out damned diversity!

I see this as good news for the public radio stations across the country who now have less competition and anything that helps public radio is OK by me.

Joe Buch




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