Did Howard Stern kill satellite radio?<\/p>\n
Satellite radio was a contender.\u00c2\u00a0 Like FM in the late sixties it was based on broad playlists, doing something different, that people believed in and sold religiously via word of mouth.<\/p>\n
Then came Howard Stern.<\/p>\n
Sirius was a dying service.\u00c2\u00a0 A clone of XM.\u00c2\u00a0 With broad playlists and very little traction.\u00c2\u00a0 In order to save the company a terrestrial radio consultant was hired.\u00c2\u00a0 Who tightened the playlists and employed jive-taking deejays.\u00c2\u00a0 And then came Howard Stern.<\/p>\n
Howard Stern, for all his success, is a polarizing figure.<\/p>\n
Doubt me?\u00c2\u00a0 Then just think back a decade ago when his minions used to call every OTHER talk show in the country, both radio and TV, and say "Baba-Booey!" or other such nonsense.\u00c2\u00a0 Those not in the club thought these usually male pranksters were idiots with no lives who pledged fealty to the king of adolescence, not of all media.\u00c2\u00a0 Howard Stern was akin to Styx.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe Ozzy Osbourne.\u00c2\u00a0 A cult.\u00c2\u00a0 Far from insignificant, but by no means dominant.\u00c2\u00a0 A heavy metal club for the alienated and secretly deranged.<\/p>\n
Howard Stern became the face of Sirius Radio.\u00c2\u00a0 He hawked it the same way he hyped Snapple and the other advertisers who bought time on his show.\u00c2\u00a0 It was endless shilling.\u00c2\u00a0 Lacking credibility.\u00c2\u00a0 Not so different from Ed McMahon selling dog food.\u00c2\u00a0 You could tell, his main motivation was to get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 And that he was.\u00c2\u00a0 Les Moonves even sued him for part of the action.<\/p>\n
What else was on Sirius?\u00c2\u00a0 Who knew and who cared?\u00c2\u00a0 Howard’s peeps, and a very small portion of them I might add, bought inferior hardware and installed it in their cars just to listen to their guru.<\/p>\n
And those who hate Howard Stern, and have had enough of his sex-focused talk?\u00c2\u00a0 They said GOOD RIDDANCE!\u00c2\u00a0 As Howard faded from the national stage and played in his new little backwater.<\/p>\n
So now satellite radio, instead of being a haven, became a POLARIZING service.\u00c2\u00a0 Either you were for it or against it.\u00c2\u00a0 Either with Stern and his people or running away from them.<\/p>\n
As for XM?\u00c2\u00a0 The service was a deer in the headlights.<\/p>\n
Trying to keep the financials in mind, holding a decent business as opposed to the floundering Sirius, XM was low on marketing and high on word of mouth.\u00c2\u00a0 XM was the field of dreams service.\u00c2\u00a0 Just make it great and people will come.\u00c2\u00a0 Hugh Panero and his troops were no match for Scott Greenstein and ultimately Mel Karmazin.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the little league versus the major league.\u00c2\u00a0 The rubes versus the city folk.\u00c2\u00a0 Tony Brummel versus Lyor Cohen.\u00c2\u00a0 XM was blown completely out of the water.\u00c2\u00a0 Who cared about steak if there was dazzling sizzle?<\/p>\n
Sirius painted the house while XM was furnishing theirs.\u00c2\u00a0 Sirius hired every famous name in music and gave them a channel.\u00c2\u00a0 And people NOT in music, like Martha Stewart.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget that almost none of them were broadcasters.\u00c2\u00a0 We live in a star-based world, get stars and the people will COME!<\/p>\n
But that’s just what the satellite customer abhorred.\u00c2\u00a0 The celebrity-driven culture jammed down their throats.\u00c2\u00a0 Satellite radio went from refuge to usual suspect OVERNIGHT!<\/p>\n
Who gave a shit about Eminem and Shady 45?<\/p>\n
And then who cared about XM’s pale answer back with the I’ll sell to anybody Snoop?<\/p>\n
Yes, seeing that Sirius was getting all the ink, all the attention, XM decided to imitate, POORLY!\u00c2\u00a0 They kicked the tires on every piece of talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Signing very little.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like a minor market team with a COUPLE of stars and unknowns.<\/p>\n
Then XM let NASCAR go and got baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 So what you ended up with was the Howard Stern service versus the baseball service.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you didn’t like Howard or baseball, you tuned out completely.\u00c2\u00a0 These services WERE NOT FOR YOU!<\/p>\n
You wanted a respite.\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted a new place where you were respected.\u00c2\u00a0 And you found it.\u00c2\u00a0 With your iPod!<\/p>\n
Nothing you didn’t like appeared on your iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 Your iPod was your friend.\u00c2\u00a0 It never crossed you.<\/p>\n
Heard anybody sell you satellite radio recently?<\/p>\n
Almost never happens.<\/p>\n
Prior to Howard, satellite radio listeners were religious devotees.\u00c2\u00a0 Who got you in their cars and MADE you listen.\u00c2\u00a0 Waxed rhapsodic and INSISTED you sign up.\u00c2\u00a0 Now they’re selling a shopworn story.\u00c2\u00a0 Which their friends are not interested in hearing.\u00c2\u00a0 Since they ALREADY KNOW IT!<\/p>\n
Just like major labels overhype bands and eliminate the discovery process and fandom, so have Howard Stern and the Sirius team drained all the discovery magic from the satellite radio sphere.\u00c2\u00a0 EVERYBODY knows about satellite radio.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to hear about something NEW!<\/p>\n
As for how the movie plays out…<\/p>\n
Sirius trumps XM.\u00c2\u00a0 XM thought it was about car installations, partnerships, unique, adventurous programming.\u00c2\u00a0 Not realizing their rival, in a death spiral, would play by traditional rules and drag them down to their level.<\/p>\n
And on this level, Sirius wins.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got Howard.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got stars.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s WHERE IT’S HAPPENING!<\/p>\n
But satellite radio ISN’T happening.\u00c2\u00a0 Today Sirius has 5.1 million subscribers.\u00c2\u00a0 While XM has 7.2 million.\u00c2\u00a0 In a country of 300 million, only 12 million people are signed up.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, maybe you use the concept of households.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, in a country of 100 million households, just over 10 percent are satellite radio subscribers.<\/p>\n
The teen market?\u00c2\u00a0 Almost completely closed out.\u00c2\u00a0 They never knew good radio and they don’t have credit cards, never mind $12.95 a month.<\/p>\n
As for the future?<\/p>\n
Sirius gained 441,101 subscribers last quarter.\u00c2\u00a0 XM 285,000.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, Sirius KILLED XM.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know how XM recovers.\u00c2\u00a0 Because other than baseball, which the average person doesn’t even know they broadcast, what does XM STAND FOR??\u00c2\u00a0 Satellite radio’s image has been tarnished by Howard, without a unique strategy, without an angle, without an identity, PEOPLE PASS XM BY!<\/p>\n
And the above rate of adoption is pitiful.\u00c2\u00a0 If Apple sold so few iPods, its stock would tank.\u00c2\u00a0 OOPS, Sirius and XM’s stock HAVE tanked.<\/p>\n
Satellite radio is now niche.\u00c2\u00a0 And will be forever more.\u00c2\u00a0 Even talk to those who get it free with new cars.\u00c2\u00a0 I hear again and again that when the subscription runs out, they’re not going to pay $12.95 a month, they’re just gonna listen to their iPODs!<\/p>\n
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Did Howard Stern kill satellite radio? Satellite radio was a contender.\u00c2\u00a0 Like FM in the late sixties it was based on broad playlists, doing something different, that people believed in and sold religiously via word of mouth. Then came Howard Stern. Sirius was a dying service.\u00c2\u00a0 A clone of XM.\u00c2\u00a0 With broad playlists and very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-siriusxm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}