Thursday, July 27, 2006

XM radio. Put a fork in it.

XM radio continues to lose money. They're losing $2.6 million a day. That's $108,000 an hour. That's $1800 a minute. $30 bucks a second - every second of every day all day every day 24 hours a day - AHHHHH - Shoot me. That my friend, is a screwed up business. Imagine being XM brass, and having to explain almost daily what you're gonna go to stop the bleeding. XM loses $20,000 in the time it takes me to slap back a cup of coffee. Why?

XM thought you all were completely dissatisfied with American broadcasting. XM assumed you'd pay anything for digital commercial free programming. So far, 8.2 million of you have. 295,734,134 call America home. XM has a long way to go.

Don't get me wrong. Many ARE dissatisfied with radio as it is. Corporate radio has reduced many stations to a Windows 2000 program that runs itself. It's impersonal. It's dry. It's programming that's void of feeling. It creates stations that are impossible to bond with. XM is the personification of this bland radio reality - and subscribers - and potential subscribers know it.

Local radio from local owners still make the listener connection. There are some corporate stations that succeed in doing this - they're just few and far between. In the meantime, XM goes on, delivering channel after channel of the same ol' shit. They're like cable TV. "I have 250 channels and there's nothing on!"

The headlines read: "XM is reducing subscriber estimates." "XM reports more losses." Lose $231,000,000 in 90 days in almost any business and the business closes. Why then don't they close up shop? They claim they know why numbers are so bad. "Current marketplace dynamics."

In radio speak - this means little radio shops like the one I work for are serving the needs of listeners without charging a subscription fee.

If you own satellite radio stock, sell. Call your broker and sell it right now. Now. Tomorrow it may not be worth the paper it's printed on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nicely done Mr. Pierce. I am a free radio advocate myself. God Bless.

Anonymous said...

Very pretty design! Keep up the good work. Thanks.
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Anonymous said...

I bought a car and insisted they remove the xm radio before I took delivery.