"Get Ready!!!! Starting May 18, XM/Sirius subscribers get a FREE WEEK OF HOWARD STERN!!"
Cymbals Crash!! Howard Stern roars "This is GLORIOUS!!" Apparently unrelated laughter and guffaws ensue!!! All because for one week and ONE WEEK ONLY, the Howard Stern show will be available FOR FREE to XM/Sirius Subscribers!! I mean, if that's not worth shouting about, please tell me WHAT IS???
Ok, a little perspective and history, if I may:
For the better part of twenty years, Howard Stern was available on Free, Terrestrial Radio in pretty much every market in the US. I used to listen to him on my morning drive to my substitute gigs in Western New York, way back in the early-90s. That is, I used to listen to him until he made me feel dirty for the experience- usually about five minutes a day.
Then, Stern was offered a massively bloated contract by Already-Heavily-In-Debt Sirius Satellite Radio. I think it was something like 10 years, $500 million. Which is more than Alex Rodriguez makes. Barely.
To the shock of the suits at Sirius, the signing of Stern (how's that for alliteration?) did not result in a flood of new subscribers. In fact, it had only two immediate results: First, Sirius tried to renegotiate it's contract with Stern. Second, Sirius became much more interested in a bankruptcy-avoiding merger with rival XM.
(In the meantime, XM had made it's own share of brain-dead financial decisions, including signing dimwit yakkers Opie and Anthony to a bloated long-term contract, offering the show first as a "premium" to XM subscribers, then quickly pulling back and offering it for free when they realized that the number of people willing to pay extra to hear two adults yuk it up over situations and jokes aimed primarily at 12-year old boys and mentally underdeveloped "men" was not as large a universe as they were conned into believing.)
Which brings us to the merger, and the preposterously wasteful Howard Stern contract becoming the shared responsibility of both XM and Sirius. Which means that I must be subjected to the desperate pleas of XM radio to open my wallet and pay even MORE money (I already pay for three subscriptions, at $6.99 a month each) for the "privilege" of listening to a middle-aged shock jock interview strippers.
Earth to XM/Sirius: Bed. Made. Lie. Like the Yankees with A-Rod, you overpaid through the nose because you insisted on bidding against yourselves, and now you expect the fans to bail you out. Well, guess what? No one's buying those $3000 home plate seats at new Yankee Stadium, and all the shouting and screeching in the world isn't going to convince me to pay extra to listen to a guy I wouldn't give more than five minutes a day to when he was FREE.
May 25 can't come fast enough.
wow at least get ur facts straight, ladies in gentleman the writer of this article, is quite simply, a moron basher.
ReplyDeleteI'd take your comment more seriously if:
ReplyDeleteA. You didn't use "ur" when I think you mean "your." How old are you, anyway?
B. "Ladies in gentlemen?" Um....
C. "A moron basher?" Don't you mean "basher of morons," since XM and Sirius are made up of more than one moron. More like an army of morons.
D. You provided some alternative evidence. Seriously- if I don't have my "facts straight," please enlighten me, Mark.
Otherwise, seriously- just kiss off. You r annoying me and my BFFs LOL.
why should i provide you with the facts? you should be researching this yourself before u put out this filth. just a few tidbits, wrong on his salary! wrong on the subscriber impact stern had, if u can read just take a look at how many subs siri had before stern then compare it to now. if sirius had never gotten stern xm would of won out and blew sirius out of the water in terms of subscribers. if u paid any attention to the financials of sirixm you would see profit wise they are the closest they have ever been to breaking out of the red. by the end of 2009 they will be fcf positive. They have already had 2 straight quarters of positive ebitda which is a first for this company. The benefits of the merger have been proven with the fact that they have been able to cut expenses in half compared to a year ago while increasing their revenue and all this is on a pro forma basis as if the company was a merged entity 1st qtr 2008. Clearly your facts are biased. yes they just lost 400,000 subs in the 1st quarter, big deal the majority were promotional subs, the churn on the 15 million self paying subs stayed pretty much flat. What does that mean? cars sales sucks and sirius is taking a obvious hit cause of a lack of new cars sold with a promotional 6 month or 3 month sirius sub. The good news which is ignored is of the 15 million self paying subs who enjoy the service the churn has stayed virtually flat.
ReplyDeleteand the last fact, Sirius bought out xm, why is that? because Sirius was winning the battle, if the merger never would of happened sirius would of eventually won out, with xm going bk. Of course if the fcc would of not held up the merger it wouldn't of been such a hit to their coffers.
you clearly are a basher, and dont hate on my form of writing online. im not writing an article for some "amazing" website like you are, im just trying to respond to an uninformed basher in a quick and time saving way. to bad u bothers u
Wow, what a mess your post is. I don't have time to go through this tidal wave of crap, it's obvious you are one of the sad little boys who are devoted to Stern to the point you are willing to post garbage in defense of him (but not LITERATE garbage- seriously, buy yourself a dictionary.
ReplyDeleteYou are entitled to your own opinion, not to your own facts. XM had more than twice as many subscribers at the time of the merger (which came YEARS after Sirius's signing of Stern.) As for the rest of your garbled nonsense, its really not worth commenting on- you seem incapable of putting together a coherent sentence without resorting to your own brand of illiterate "shorthand." "Don't hate on my form of writing?" I don't see any "form of writing." I see a guy who doesn't KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS HIMSELF USING ENGLISH. I also see a guy who can't spell to save his life. But I'm supposed to take your criticism seriously.
"Clearly, your facts are biased." Yes, of course. Facts are biased.
You should be honored I spent so much time responding to your pathetic chicken scratchings. Let me translate for you: U R pathetic u dnt no wut u r tlking bout whn you diskuss sirixm so plz dnt pllute my site w/nymore of ur "filth."
"Clearly your facts are biased." Hahaha. Thanks, that made my day, all by itself.
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ReplyDeletejust to clarify my last fact, sirius was only beating out xm because of stern. sirius turned the tide as soon as they signed stern. xm was a superior service in about every other way, except sirius had stern. how u can come to the conclusion that stern did not result in a flood of subs is funny to me and a clear bias to the facts. i agree however about O&A they are terrible and did nothing for xm, but the music lovers out there preferred xm over sirius.
ReplyDeleteno they were about even at the time of the merger. xm did not have double, that is just flat out wrong. ur argument is wrong, my point is clearly made to any1 with an iq over a 100.
ReplyDeletethis isnt english class this is an online blog comment section. you clearly have lost the argument when u resort to attacking my FORM of writing on an online comment section which just shows my intelligence is probaly like a million times higher then u could even remotely imagine. once again go look at the subscriber numbers, compare how sirius was doing before stern came aboard, then compare them to after. you can do simple math right?
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ReplyDeletezzzzzzzz...when you learn to write, come back and question my IQ. And yes, I will delete further posts. Because you are boring. And childish. And need to buy yourself a vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteOh, and BTW, this blog IS an English Class. It's my blog, and I have deemed it so. And you have flunked out.
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ReplyDeleteMark's posts are being deleted because since he thinks he's entitled to his own facts, presented in his own language, he really ought to be posting them in his own blog.
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ReplyDeleteLesson Learned: Don't get on the wrong side of Howard Stern supplicants. These sad little people have nothing better to do than to call CSPAN to salute their lord and master, and to pollute sites that dare question their devotion to Stern. Get over it, people. Geesh, it's JUST A BLOG.
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