XM has got baseball. Sirius has got Howard Stern. But if you think either of those can save their respective services, you’ve got no idea how much they’re PAYING for this programming. Furthermore, not everybody is a baseball fan, and hate to tell you, Howard Stern has got an aging audience. Which begs the question, how do you expand the audience, how do you reach more people, how do you get more SUBSCRIBERS!

1. Youth

They’re completely absent from the equation. And, as the saying goes, they’re the FUTURE!

Kids don’t have credit cards. And they manage money more poorly than Mike Tyson. So, you’ve got to GIVE THEM THE SERVICE!

Yup, make a deal with Facebook. Hell, you can’t have a Facebook account if you’re not a student. It’s a walled garden. Which old men cannot enter to troll for prey. If you’re in school (and now Facebook even reaches high school students, and its college reach is essentially 100%), you get a satellite radio account. You can listen on your computer. Hell, if you have a device, you can use that too. Hell, I’d almost GIVE THE RADIOS AWAY! Sell them at cost. To get kids hooked. Because unless the satellite services do, if not toast, they’re completely marginalized. Kids are giving up on terrestrial. They’re finding out about new stuff from blogs, from podcasts. They don’t even CONTEMPLATE satellite radio. This must change for the services to survive.

And, when you graduate, you must pay, but at a REDUCED RATE, at least for a couple of years.

2. Marketing

Enough with the IMAGE ads. Hell, they didn’t reach me. I didn’t get it. Who gives a shit if the signal comes down from the sky, it’s still radio, isn’t it? And then I GOT XM and was hooked. So, the services must convey what satellite IS!

There should be less flash and more INFORMATION! Incredibly detailed print ads delineating not only philosophy, but going into what’s on EACH INDIVIDUAL CHANNEL!

Yes, XM can start with an ad about its deep playlists. Maybe even feature a picture of Lee Abrams. With a link to his blog (http://leeabrams.blogspot.com/). PERSONALIZE IT!

Then, every week, there’s a new ad. Each one in detail about a specific genre. Every rock channel. Exactly what it is. Who programs it. Then hits. Then talk. Then country. And hip-hop.

Sirius can do the same thing. And even use their best marketer, Howard Stern, to explain why satellite is so great. Instead of working the scatological fringe, Howard should employ his Boston University degree and write something straightforward, about FREEDOM! Hell, that’s what satellite is about.

3. Price

Don’t XM and Sirius realize cable TV STARTED OUT CHEAP! And the services raised their prices AFTER people were hooked?

The $12.95 price point has got to go. Sirius had to employ this price because the service had no traction. XM matched it, fearful of retaliation marketing, since their $9.95 did not include Internet service, like Sirius’ did.

Ten dollars is a magic price point. Go under it, and the cost is irrelevant. Go over it, and people CONTEMPLATE, and pass.

Both XM and Sirius are so fucked up. They’re playing to WALL STREET, not MAIN STREET! So worried about their investors, these companies are taking a short term view. It’s not about cash flow break even TODAY, it’s about BEING IN BUSINESS in the future. Shit, the stock prices are already horrific. Let investors sit there while you round up subscribers and the financials finally make sense.

Cell phones only blew up when the price came down. Now KIDS have cell phones. Almost no kids have satellite radio.

I’d say satellite radio has got a bad image, but really, it’s got NO image.

Satellite must be about music discovery. This is one thing terrestrial has given up on completely. Satellite must be a haven, from the idiot deejays and the commercials. Talk already rules terrestrial, you’re not going to convince talk radio listeners to switch, they’re not DISSATISFIED enough. Hell, even most of HOWARD STERN’S listeners didn’t follow him to Sirius. You’ve got to work the holes. The main hole is music.

And there must be emphasis on the WINNOWING process the satellite radio deejays provide. Making sense of the morass. Hell, one ad could be the hit tracks satellite is playing THAT NOBODY ELSE IS! Get a reputation for breaking records, for being where it’s at. THEN you’ve got a chance of winning.

Satellite radio is as integral to my life as my iPod. And, unlike Mel Karmazin’s proclamations, satellite should never be MERGED with the iPod. Because satellite is shitty as a portable medium. Satellite belongs permanently installed in an automobile, or at home, where you’re not moving, emanating from a boombox or your stereo or your computer. Sirius and XM keep banking on these new portable devices and they’re inherently FLAWED! The Inno is fantastic in many ways, but if I paid for mine I would have already thrown it out the window, frustrated when the FM frequency I’m tuned into suddenly gets usurped by terrestrial in my girlfriend’s car. (As for walking around town listening live, that’s even MORE maddening as the signal constantly drops out.) Sure, the Inno and the inferior no portable reception at all Sirius S50 can record, and this is GREAT, but it’s a minor part of the market. And at these exorbitant prices…shit, how many people are going to purchase them? But that’s the story in the press. How XM and Sirius are battling the FCC and record companies over radio interference and recording capabilities. That’s great for your image. That’s the kind of infighting that brings whole INDUSTRIES down. You want to stay away from the stink.

Satellite radio is godhead. If you don’t believe this, you just don’t have a subscription. But, the key is to convince you.

Some people are never going to pay. Just like cable does not have 100% penetration. But get enough people hooked, and most of the rest follow, they want IN!

Right now satellite radio is a fringe medium. Without critical mass, it will stall in the marketplace. Hell, the dominant XM has ALREADY stalled. Revising its subscription numbers DOWNWARD twice this year.

Unlike major record companies, XM and Sirius must be managed with an eye toward the future. Or, they’ll be decimated. Just like the CD killed vinyl and the cassette. It will happen overnight. When satellite is perceived as old wave technology. When everybody realizes the party is elsewhere.

I’ve got one word for you: IRIDIUM!

Satellite phones providing around the world coverage. Good idea until cell became almost ubiquitous. Only a tiny market of rich individuals traveling to out of the way places wanted to use satellite phones at exorbitant pure minute rates. Iridium collapsed. XM and Sirius, LOWER THE PRICE AND MOVE AHEAD! Shit, even AOL left a ton of money on the table in order to survive in the future, why can’t YOU??

And enough with the hype about advertising deals. I’ve never encountered a soul who likes commercials. They’re a tune-out, they don’t exist on the iPod. If you can’t make it without them, your business plan sucks. The more ads you’ve got, the more people hate you. Like I said, satellite radio must be a HAVEN!

But somehow those in charge of marketing the product just don’t get this. Unbelievable.