Re: [Swprograms] OT: The decade's 36 biggest tech flops

[Joe Buch <josephbuch@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think CNET missed the boat by blaming the financial failure of XM/Sirius on high subscriber acquisition costs while ignoring the absurd cost of acquiring Howard Stern.  That came at a time when the companies were just getting off the ground.  The dilution of stockholder equity resulting in a collapse of the stock value forced the companies to go to the debt market for added financing.  That debt burden is still around their corporate neck.

They also forgot to mention Mel Karmizan's lowest-common-denominator approach to programming.  Dozens of channels devoted to variants of the rock/hiphop/rap/ "music" formats is not what I would call something to attract the upscale, mature listener who can afford to pay for music on the way to grandmas house.  The present mix is hardly what was initially promised when they were selling the IPO for XM.

Now that the new cars have USB ports to which one can plug in a thumb drive to take along your entire CD collection on the way to grandma's house, I think satellite radio music is doomed.  It may take a while to stop kicking, but the handwriting is on the wall.  

It would be interesting to know, now that SiriusXM offers reduced packages for voice or music programming, what the relative take-up rates are for these two options.  I am a subscriber to the music option but listen a lot to NPR, WRN, BBC, CBC, and Book Radio channels which they add on as a freebie.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Joe Buch

--- On Thu, 12/10/09, Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Swprograms] OT: The decade's 36 biggest tech flops
> To: "Shortwave programming discussion" <swprograms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 10:48 PM
> >From the folks at CNet; two may be of
> interest to this group.
> 
> Listed chronogically:
> 
> #10 Satellite Radio
> #16 HD Radio
> 
> See http://reviews.cnet.com/2300-33_7-10001201.html?tag=mncol
> 
> 
> -- 
> Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  USA
> 
> International broadcasting / shortwave blog:
> http://www.intlradio.blogspot.com
> 
> 
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