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XM 2?

S

Shredder

You know,

I was curious about something...For all the people who got fired in this merger that made XM great...

Why can't they do something along the lines of HD Radio? Head over to that company and make it the 'son of XM Radio' only under a different name? That way they'd be
free, don't have to worry about mergers or buy outs, etc...

It's sad to see all that talent go to waste. I could listen for 3 hours straight doing work and not hear a single song repeated on some XM stations...
 
Mel is trying to shove one year non- competes down everyone's throats in return for their severance packages. They would not be able to work for another radio entity on the planet for a year.

HD is scattered all over the country and controlled by individual radio stations who largely have no clue as to what to really do with it. I can't see that as a viable option, especially right now when established broadcasters can't even get banks to loan them money for projects that the same banks tripped over themselves to get to six months ago.

Only real hope here is that the Obama FCC forces Sirius/XM to vacate one of the frequencies or a bankruptcy court does the same sometime next year. Guess here is that they'd be forced to vacate the XM band (its more expensive to launch replacement satellites to) and then we might see another service attempt to make a go of it.
 
There aren't enough Paid Subscribers to keep 2 separate Sat Casters in business and turn any kind of a profit. (The only reason people go into business is to make a profit... not to be Technology or Broadcasting pioneers) Thats why the merger occurred... they needed to merge to survive. ("Circling the wagons" for the protection & safety of all.) The sudden & complete stop of new car sales is not gonna help increase the listener base either. You have to hope that the new, merged entity will survive, not believe there's a chance for 2 to compete and survive.

I for one, hope the it does survive. There is simply no more dial twirling on a drive of more than 45 minutes looking for a station to replace the one thats fading out.
 
Ahh, OK. Didn't think there would be a standard 'no working anywhere else for a year' clause in the buy out contract.

But that's one reason why I suggested the same marketing team for XM gets behind HD Radio. They could really straighten out that mess of a network.

For instance, change the logo/company name to something that identifies it a bit better. From what I hear, it's not really Hi-Def sound and no better than a CD or 32KB radio stream.

They could get some of the best programmers in radio to create their 'flagship' channels that would have a national presence, while still keeping the local stations channels in tact. Like WPLJ HD-1.

It'd be an even bigger coup if they could make cheap new radios to go in current cars that accept the HD signal.

So long as there is a free reliable alternative, I wouldn't mind seeing the days of AM FM radio going by the wayside.
 
Shredder said:
But that's one reason why I suggested the same marketing team for XM gets behind HD Radio. They could really straighten out that mess of a network.
Click to expand...

Couldn't hurt, but the ultimate outcome would probably be the same. Without some sort of mandate that puts HD in all new cars it's going to be a non-starter.

Satellite radio's advertising has never made any money for the satcasters, but in the early days especially, they did a fine job of demonizing terrestrial radio and helping to turn public opinion against it.

Just not enough to actually pay for satellite radio!
 
Shredder said:
But that's one reason why I suggested the same marketing team for XM gets behind HD Radio. They could really straighten out that mess of a network.
Click to expand...

Everything costs money. Back in the old days (five years ago) I was an XM stockholder, so I saw how much money they spent for that marketing. It was about a hundred million dollars. HD doesn't have that kind of money. In fact NO ONE has that kind of money right now.

As someone else pointed out, HD Radio is not some kind of centralized network like XM. It's simply a technology that individual AM and FM stations buy and place additional programming on. If you don't like AM & FM, you probably won't like HD. Then again, Satellite is starting to sound like FM too.

Ultimately someone has to want to spend lots of money. No one has any. So unless the fired XM folks want to work for free, or invest their own money, it won't happen.

Post-script to the XM stockholder story...I'm happy to say I sold before I lost too much money. Whew!
 
Digital MCPC, used by background and commercial-free subscription music programmers like DMX, multiplexes over 100 CD quality audio channels into a single 30 mbps aggregate full transponder carrier. With the full-transponder digital modulation format, very inexpensive receivers are possible to manufacture, offsetting the high satellite transponder time charges over very largereceiver and subscription bases.

So can this still be done?
 
Nobody has the money to do anything right now. As CBS is proving you can't even sell profitable radio stations in this market. As it is CBS keeps trying to create more and more HD channels and streaming channels and doesn't have the bandwidth to do it. In many markets the sound quality of both are going down the tubes.

We're going to have to deal with the reality that Sirius/XM is going to be the only national, mobile radio service available for about the next five years. There is no credit market at present and everyone remotely interested in the radio business right now is working OT just to make sure they can keep operating what they already have.

What should be of interest to all of us who still subcribe is what will happen in 2009 when all of the bank notes come due and Mel is forced to take action. Remember there is about $1b in debt overhang to deal with in the nxt 12 months. If he files bankruptcy can he hold onto the company through Chapter 11? Would there be enough money out there somewhere to take what emerges from Chapter 11 private?
 
Snafu said:
We're going to have to deal with the reality that Sirius/XM is going to be the only national, mobile radio service available for about the next five years.
Click to expand...

That's assuming they make it through the next six months. They have more debt than any of the radio companies.
 
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