Don't they sell lots of advertising for Stern's show? And the advertisers don't care who or how many people are listening?
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Shock jock Howard Stern enrages fans by announcing he's now taking entire summer off after signing $500M Sirius XM contract
- Thread starter TTalkradio1
- Start date
Maybe if you spelled "kumquat" right, they'd pay attention.
That's the part of SXM's business model I don't get. They apparently don't subscribe to Nielsen, have no way to know what any of their listeners who use radios are listening to or how many of them are listening. They can track online/app listening, but have no way of knowing just who is listening -- subscriber, spouse/partner, kids -- or how old they are. SXM does send out surveys occasionally, usually more like biased "push polls" designed to get subscribers to tell them "Yes, I listen to (insert name of expensive-to-produce-and-staff talk or sports channel here) and love it!" by always putting the channels being promoted at the top of the list.
I was led to believe they've had "two-way connectivity" in cars for the last five years. So they can track your in-car listening.
That's obviously limited to certain receivers, so it's not the full subscriber base.
Precisely!Maybe if you spelled "kumquat" right, they'd pay attention.
Have never seen anything about that in Facebook groups and online SXM fan forums. Would be interested in knowing if your "led to believe" came from an inside source, which receivers have such capacity and how they work. They're obviously not bouncing signals back to the satellites, right?
Apparently it's part of the new 360L service:
Bet you listen to more radio than you realize
And here's why: Four ways car radio is reinventing itself.
www.cnet.com
It's also utilized in their navigation & traffic services for an extra $5.95 a month.
The writer betrays his lack of long-term experience with SiriusXM (or CNET's willingness to parrot anything the industry tells it) by touting the newfound (haha) capacity the listener now has to be notified when a favorite artist or song is playing on SXM. I have a 15-year-old Delphi SkyFi2 XM receiver that's done that from the day it came out of the box. You see "Van Morrison" or "Moondance" on your display, you can easily save either for future notifications whether you're at home or in the car. From then on, unless you choose to disable notifications, your radio will beep and the screen display will change whenever Van is played or anyone's version of "Moondance" (including Van's) is played. The channel will not change unless you tap the central button on your remote or inside the radio's tuning wheel. This feature has never sent anything back to XM (or, later, SXM) because the radio is a dumb device. Show me where the radio suddenly has the capacity of sending a signal to a satellite and I might be more excited over this "oh wow" story that really isn't.Apparently it's part of the new 360L service:
Bet you listen to more radio than you realize
And here's why: Four ways car radio is reinventing itself.
It's also utilized in their navigation & traffic services for an extra $5.95 a month.
Also, I'm not sure what the two-way capabilities of nav/traffic have to do with reporting channel use back to Big Brother in SXM's New York City HQ. Aren't they independent of the audio-related SXM service? And again, does the radio have a transmitter, and is that transmitter connected to an antenna that can get a signal back to a satellite?
I think the article described it as using the internet to make the device interactive.
In past years, Howard was required to do 111 shows a year. He had been doing three days a week, 37 weeks a year, minus a few Monday holidays. Let's say the new contract reduced that work load to 100 shows a year. That would give him nine weeks off in the summer and nine weeks off scattered around the rest of the year.
To those who complain, let me ask this: 100 shows per year times 3.5 hours in each show. That's 350 hours of programming per year. If you listen an hour a day, five days a week, and you work 47 weeks a year (3 weeks vacation, plus 10 holidays and sick days) you'd be listening to 235 hours of Stern a year. You still wouldn't catch every hour. You'd still miss about 1/3 of Stern's output.
Anyone who complains is likely a lazy listener. With the app, you can listen back whenever he's not live, to catch anything you missed during previous shows. Apparently you want Stern on the air, even when you're not listening, to make your life easier. I doubt anyone who's complaining is hearing all 350 hours a year of Stern, and then wanting more.
To those who complain, let me ask this: 100 shows per year times 3.5 hours in each show. That's 350 hours of programming per year. If you listen an hour a day, five days a week, and you work 47 weeks a year (3 weeks vacation, plus 10 holidays and sick days) you'd be listening to 235 hours of Stern a year. You still wouldn't catch every hour. You'd still miss about 1/3 of Stern's output.
Anyone who complains is likely a lazy listener. With the app, you can listen back whenever he's not live, to catch anything you missed during previous shows. Apparently you want Stern on the air, even when you're not listening, to make your life easier. I doubt anyone who's complaining is hearing all 350 hours a year of Stern, and then wanting more.
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Anyone who complains is jealous!
While I have no clue if the SXM system in my vehicle can send information about listener habits back to them, when I'm using OnStar, the operator does have the ability to see where I'm driving and in which direction. I also get a monthly report from my vehicle's manufacturer, summarizing a load of diagnostics that I can also see in my dashboard - tire pressures, fluid levels and the like. My vehicle, which is now about 4 years old, also has the ability to be a WiFi hotspot. All that in mind, depending on the capabilities of the SXM unit, it would be simple enough for it to report out my habits and tie it to the ID number of my receiver.
I think you'll find it's primarily a bunch of armchair quarterbacks doing what they do best...Spouting off on the internet about stuff they themselves have no clue about. Many probably don't even subscribe to SXM and many probably don't like Stern or are the type who take the opportunity to spout off and complain about anything/everything. As mentioned in my post at the beginning of this discussion thread, if they're jealous about the amount of vacation time a Howard Stern or a Johnny Carson receive(s)(d) vs. the millions they made, then let them go and develop their own show and their own following and do it better!
As I recall the original idea of this 360L device was to compete with OnStar and other GPS navigation systems.
I know that. I am talking about people who said he became like Imus. He's worse than Imus was.
If you were offered $500M to stay in your job, then asked if you could take the summer months and holidays off too, and they agreed, wouldn't you take that offer? I know I sure would!
The people who created this problem isn't Stern, it's SXM management. They've painted themselves into a corner through relying on too much revenue solely on Stern's shoulders with no contingency plans. They've had plenty of time and several years with rounds of negotiations to get the hint and develop a backup plan post-Howard.
360L was originally developed to also add more streamed channels to the satellite lineup by allowing the in-car system to seamlessly select between an Internet stream or satellite. There were also other future data and metadata options baked into the architecture which included weather and traffic data, plus subscription assistant systems similar to OnStar.
Is anything "baked into" 360L that would let SXM know that I'm listening to such-and-such a song on such-and-such a channel at such-and-such a time while in my car, or is the radio still a "dumb unit" in that regard? And am I right in assuming that that millions of legacy radios already in cars (and homes and offices) are still not sending any such data back to SXM? I already assume that Nielsen PPM units either can't detect SXM listening or don't get enough info from the encoding to determine what channel is being listened to.
SXM is going to have to see who their answer to Clay and Buck, or Dan Bongino, and Dana Loesch are though. But we don't find out either after his vacation or any event SXM leaders were not expecting from Howard Stern.
The 360L units (and SXM iOS/Android app) have two way connectivity.
Regardless of the radio, I think it is safe to assume that anything and everything that occurs in a "connected" vehicle can and is sent somewhere. What happens from there is anyone's guess!
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