Syndicating Satellite To Terrestrial Pays Off, At Least A Little, For XM

from the across-the-airwaves dept

Back in April, XM caused a bit of a stir when it announced it would syndicate the show of shock jocks Opie and Anthony to a number of terrestrial stations, the first time such a thing had been done. The deal was met with plenty of skepticism, but because they hosts could plug XM on the air, and CBS was getting a shorter, censored version of the show, XM felt it could drive listeners to its satellite-based service — and it looks like they were right. During the company’s quarterly conference call, its CEO says the number of new subscribers saying they joined because of Opie and Anthony has doubled, while the show’s terrestrial ratings are rising. Still, the effect may not be helping XM all that much overall, as it announced a quarterly loss and cut subscriber forecasts for the rest of the year.


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Comments on “Syndicating Satellite To Terrestrial Pays Off, At Least A Little, For XM”

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28 Comments
Chris says:

Earth Radio dying

Ok, XM and Sirius have something going for them, they dont have to bother with the FCC’s censors and therefore people can really speak their minds on the radio without the host having to worry about his license being pulled. As one radion host I listened to said, The FCC needs to be sued because it the radio industry, the industry I love (Ok, its not an exact quote but its close enough) Satalite radios only downside is its expense and the special equipment you need to listen to it, other than that, radio may live a less glamorus life but still live in outter space.

*Note* I know that last part might be a little hard to understand, I wasnt sure how I could make it any clearer.

Ambiguous Coward says:

A transitional technology

Any of you young whippersnappers remember Car Phones? or those ridiculous 10 pound luggable phones? They just faded away as cell phones got smaller and roaming charges disappeared. Who the hell do you know now with an actual car phone?

Satellite radio is the same way. Whenever the country is blanketed in 100% always on high speed wireless internet service then the idea of transmitting from space and the cost of maintaining a fleet of satellites will be ludicrous. We’ll tune our music like we visit web sites… by url. For a fee still of course…

StickerNerds says:

LOL

“I invented syndicating shock jocks to terrestrial radio, hoo hoo. Tell em Fred”

Funny cause stern did in fact start real syndication in radio and made it all possible..you should only have him to thank for it.

my problem with the financial reports filed it says “doubled” the people who said they signed up for O&A… double what? double 20? double 40?

fact that they only signed up 330k vs sirius 660k really tells me that the double might have just been a spin on something.

besides they have been on for over a year, i would think their sub impact is minimal now, so if they are signing up minimium after 1 year which is possible cause their fans are already there, then DOUBLE is prob not the blockbuster everyone thinks it is

Chesters Liver says:

Stickernerds is an idiot

I don’t know what the numbers for signups are but regardless of the overall numbers, it means that opie and anthony are driving 2x as many ppl to XM as they were before. They are doing their part, and you can’t ask much more than that. The rest is up to XM Marketing

second of all.. Hoo Hoo invented syndication on the radio??? are you retarded? there was other syndicated shows before that one-hit-wonder ass licker came around. He took Imus’ show and added sex and a couple of good bits, got high ratings and they threw him on a bunch of stations. OOOO soo creative. That was 1987. Howard didn’t invent controversy on the radio, dumbass.

Anonymous Coward says:

I think XM and Sirius should merge. I don’t like corperate monopolies, but it beats having to decide between to two for their different programs or pay two fees for both. They could pobobly make some more money that way, too, because it would attract people who wouldn’t get satellite radio becaue it’s all right there, in one package, for one fee.

Andrew Strasser says:

Re: I think they should merge.

Being one of the same belief system in the whole monopoly thing you kinda have to throw that out the window when you’re dealing with billion and trillion dollar satellites. If they merged you’d get the same quality service and they would spend half the cost on the satelites or did they do that and you just didn’t see. Who ever said they were wholly owned by seperate entities. Is that even possible in broadcast anymore?

Arthur Chien says:

Xm v Sirius

What people fail to understand is that it’s not just XM superior content that will lead them to total satellite radio domination, but it’s also superior technology. Sirius does have some good units, but they came in late to the market and are trying to figure out the tech aspect as quickly as possible – unfortunately that means making some of the same mistakes that XM made early on – clunky units, fewer features, etc.

When you sacrifice an ungodly amount of capital to bring personalities in something has to suffer – in this case it’s their tech funds. XM has kept their contracts slimmer and more flexible so that they can continue to spend tons of cash on development of their tech – the Inno for example, more repeaters, better satellites, etc.

It also helps to have contracts with the federal government – the most brilliant move XM has made to date was leasing for 3-5 years a ton of bandwidth to the government for not just nation-wide emergency communications, but also allowing them to bounce those communications from other sats around the world.

Look, I’m not going on a tirade about Hoo-Hoo and the Boys. It boils down to tech and corporate flexibility – XM has it is and the Doggie doesn’t.

jack casey says:

EARTH RADIO..DEAD!

PREDICTIONS ARE MADE BY WATCHING THE SIGNS. CLEAR CHANNEL IS SELLING OUT, RADIO REVENUES ARE FLAT…IPODS AND THE INTERNET ARE GAING MORE LISTENERS. UNLESS RADIO REENVENTS ITSELF WITH PERSONALITY BASED PROGRAMMING,HD WILL NOT SAVE IT. CLEAR CHANNEL RUINED RADIO AS WE KNOW IT. PEOPLE ARE’T STUPID THEY ‘VE CAUGHT ON TO VOICE TRACKING AND THE BORING COOKIE CUTTER PLAYLISTS SOME OF THE BEST SHOWS ARE ON “LIVE 365”. LOOK TO THE SKIES BOYS & GIRLS

jack casey says:

EARTH RADIO..DEAD!

PREDICTIONS ARE MADE BY WATCHING THE SIGNS. CLEAR CHANNEL IS SELLING OUT, RADIO REVENUES ARE FLAT…IPODS AND THE INTERNET ARE GAINING MORE LISTENERS. UNLESS RADIO REENVENTS ITSELF WITH PERSONALITY BASED PROGRAMMING,HD WILL NOT SAVE IT. CLEAR CHANNEL RUINED RADIO AS WE KNOW IT. PEOPLE AREN’T STUPID THEY ‘VE CAUGHT ON TO VOICE TRACKING AND THE BORING COOKIE CUTTER PLAYLISTS SOME OF THE BEST SHOWS ARE ON “LIVE 365”. LOOK TO THE SKIES BOYS & GIRLS

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