Sirius Weekly Thread 11-30-2009

[SiriuslyLong]

Spence had put up an article on Weds night . . it was up only briefly and then it was gone . .

If I have to read that "Parsons Steps Down" headline 1 more time I am going to call for Spence to step down . . . come-on guys . . a new headline please!

Great minds think alike. I was just saying the same damn thing myself. I think Spence ought to re-think his position. There is only so much you can write about that is not equity related.

Did you see the football game last night. Jeez, I saw the Sirius commercial a half dozen times. It's all over football - Monday night, Thursday night, college, Sundays..... It's obvious who the target audience is. They should make another one targeting woman - Oprah, Rosey, the old blonde.....

Listen to me saying that there is only so much to talk about LOL.

[SiriuslyLong]

Good article by Relmor today pointing-out 12/18/2009 vesting date for director stock options . .

12/18 is a pivotal date because it also falls on an "Options Expiration Friday"

No coincidence I am sure . .

http://www.cboe.com/AboutCBOE/xcal2009.pdf

Thanks for the facts SRK. What's your interpretation?

[Sirius Roadkill]

Great minds think alike. I was just saying the same damn thing myself. I think Spence ought to re-think his position. There is only so much you can write about that is not equity related.

Did you see the football game last night. Jeez, I saw the Sirius commercial a half dozen times. It's all over football - Monday night, Thursday night, college, Sundays..... It's obvious who the target audience is. They should make another one targeting woman - Oprah, Rosey, the old blonde.....

Listen to me saying that there is only so much to talk about LOL.

Yup! As a die-hard J-E-T-S JETS-JETS-JETS fan with a pedigree tracing back to the days of Joe Willy White-Shoes Namath (Joe had that name long before Billy White Shoes Johnson btw) . . I did see the whole game SL and also saw the ad myself . . that ad is really getting heavy play. I love when "T-O" gets shut down like he was last night.

ohhhhh, I get it now, the "old blonde" is Martha Stewart . . I like to call her the jailbird . . don't forget folks, it's insiders like her who steal from you and me everyday so she can pay the property taxes on her Connecticut mansion.

Hey SL, at this point I would take another Miley Cyrus article . . . at least that got some serious buzz (pun intended) . .

[Sirius Roadkill]

Thanks for the facts SRK. What's your interpretation?

Impossible to know at this point but Relmor is correct to point-out that individual motivations are very difficult to extrapolate to broader market sentiment . . I am not big on reading anything into insider activity . . even when Mel went in for a big chunk immediately after the merger I still interpreted that as simply trying to quite the masses and not a genuine belief that the Feb converts would ever "price-through"

But the media of course will most definitely misinterpret insider activity just as they have with these planned tranche sales.

As to his WorldSpace thesis . . some of what I have read leans more toward this being a typical John Malone strategy of seeking out Net Operating Loss Carry-Forwards rather than a legitimate interest in the underlying business model . .

[SiriuslyLong]

Yup! As a die-hard J-E-T-S JETS-JETS-JETS fan with a pedigree tracing back to the days of Joe Willy White-Shoes Namath (Joe had that name long before Billy White Shoes Johnson btw) . . I did see the whole game SL and also saw the ad myself . . that ad is really getting heavy play. I love when "T-O" gets shut down like he was last night.

ohhhhh, I get it now, the "old blonde" is Martha Stewart . . I like to call her the jailbird . . don't forget folks, it's insiders like her who steal from you and me everyday so she can pay the property taxes on her Connecticut mansion.

Hey SL, at this point I would take another Miley Cyrus article . . . at least that got some serious buzz (pun intended) . .

LOL - I had forgotten about Miley Cyrus. It was forgettable, but you make a decent point.

Martha Stewart, yeah, yeah, that's the one.

J-E-T-S: I had them as winners in my pool, and I gave them a high ranking. It should serve me well as the masses where going with the Bills. Earth to masses, Earth to masses - the Bills?

My prediction for SIRI stock price 62 - 64. We are stuck in a rut. Who said that yesterday or the day before? Unless Mel comes out with something so stunning, we shall remain right here for an extended period - maybe through January until specualation begins re: 4Q2009.

[Sirius Roadkill]

One on One with Mel Karmazin, CEO Sirus XM Radio
Wednesday, December 02, 2009


SUSIE GHARIB: Sirius XM radio is singing a different tune these days. It was on the brink of bankruptcy just a year ago, battered by a drop in sales of new vehicles equipped with satellite radios. But now Sirius is delivering good news and benefiting from a recent credit upgrade from S&P. I met Sirius's Mel Karmazin today and began by asking, how's business?

MEL KARMAZIN, CEO, SIRIUS XM RADIO: Actually business is doing quite well. We just issued our third quarter earnings and we added subscribers. We grew revenue. We grew cash flow. So things are going quite well.

GHARIB: We saw yesterday that the auto sales came out, still not that great. Your business relies on people buying cars. So how is that going?

KARMAZIN: Well, I think people are still buying cars. I think people are not buying 16 million cars a year, as has been the history over the last 10 years, but it's higher than it's been. We hit bottom. We seem to be on our way back. Our budget for next year is predicated on about 11 to 12 million car sales and based on yesterday's sales, that is very much in line.

GHARIB: What's your take on the consumer? Are they renewing their subscriptions or are they cutting back on expenses like satellite radio?

KARMAZIN: What we're hearing from our subscribers and the way that we hear about it is as they renew their subscriptions and we are doing better than we thought we would do in this environment. So we are pleasantly surprised at our churn rate, because every time that bill is due, they either pay it or they choose to cancel our service. Our churn rate is around 2 percent which is quite good.

GHARIB: Let's talk a little bit about competition. What do you think about some of these up and coming competition like from Internet radio where you get free services, thousands of stations?

KARMAZIN: So we have $2.5 billion a year today in revenue. The largest Internet radio company that we've seen is $100 million. So it's hard for me at $2.5 billion to look at a company where they aren't making any money.

GHARIB: Some people would say that's just a matter of time that the satellite radio business model will be out of date. What do you say to that?

KARMAZIN: I believe we will be the leading company in the audio entertainment space in the years ahead and it's our position to lose and there's nobody, nobody that can compare with the fact that we have these 135 channels in every single market in the United States and we have all of these commercial-free music channels and Oprah show and Howard Stern. We offer the best radio on the radio.

GHARIB: Howard Stern has been a very positive force for Sirius and I under that his contract expires next year. Is he going to re-up and what happens next?

KARMAZIN: Howard has been a very significant performer for us. He has to decide on whether or not he wants to continue. If he does, I would be doing everything I can to work out financial arrangements that are in our shareholders' best interests to do a deal with Howard.

GHARIB: Can you afford to keep continuing to pay top dollar for people like Howard Stern or Martha Stewart giving the economics of this business?

KARMAZIN: Over my entire career, I've always heard that content is expensive. Well, yeah, contempt is very expensive and if you want to have great content, whether it be the NFL or whether or not it be Howard Stern, you have to pay for it. And my business model is always that I'd rather figure out a way to make money with the talent rather than not have them and compete against them.

GHARIB: Before I came to talk to you today, I talked to a lot of analysts and most of them said ask him what is he going to do to get the stock above a dollar a share so that it won't be de-listed. What can you do?

KARMAZIN: The same thing that any CEO does to get their stock higher. They just continue to crank out the free cash flow and you continue to grow your company and you show that you're resilient in difficult times. I'm disappointed in where our stock price is. I think a lot of CEOs if you take a look at the bubble that existed in the past and where the stocks are trading at, it's not the same as it used to be.

GHARIB: Mr. Karmazin, thank you so much and good luck to you.

KARMAZIN: Thank you very much.

[Sirius Roadkill]

I think Spence ought to re-think his position. There is only so much you can write about that is not equity related.

I agree SL . . it looks like Spence is trying to adopt the Howard Stern Model . . total exclusivity of content . . I think it is a mistake . . . the same way I think it is a mistake for Stern

At some point you make yourself so exclusive that you become culturally less relevant . . .

As expressed by this Jay Leno excerpt from the NY Times:

Yet Mr. Leno clearly had no interest in stepping away from television. “I’m old enough to realize there’s only so many years left,” Mr. Leno said. “I kind of watched Howard Stern. On radio, Howard to me was a populist. The truck driver, the average guy would listen in the café, the truck, the old car that’s 50 years old and still has an AM radio. Then he went to Sirius and obviously it was a lot of money. But I don’t hear him quoted anymore. People don’t say: ‘Hey, did you hear what Howard said today?’ And I’m sure he’s still doing what he always does. But to me that seemed a mistake.”

"Hey SL, did you hear what Spence said today?" . . . nope, me neither

"Hey SL, did you see what Spence wrote today?" . . . nope, me neither

"Hey SL, did you see Spence's Q-4 Outlook?" . . . nope, me neither

Ya gotta grease the skids every once in a while . . . ya know what I'm saying?

What's the first rule of bartending? I mean come-on, ya gotta throw in a free drink here & there, no?

[socalrunningfool]

I agree SL . . it looks like Spence is trying to adopt the Howard Stern Model . . total exclusivity of content . . I think it is a mistake . . . the same way I think it is a mistake for Stern

At some point you make yourself so exclusive that you become culturally less relevant . . .

As expressed by this Jay Leno excerpt from the NY Times:

Yet Mr. Leno clearly had no interest in stepping away from television. “I’m old enough to realize there’s only so many years left,” Mr. Leno said. “I kind of watched Howard Stern. On radio, Howard to me was a populist. The truck driver, the average guy would listen in the café, the truck, the old car that’s 50 years old and still has an AM radio. Then he went to Sirius and obviously it was a lot of money. But I don’t hear him quoted anymore. People don’t say: ‘Hey, did you hear what Howard said today?’ And I’m sure he’s still doing what he always does. But to me that seemed a mistake.”

"Hey SL, did you hear what Spence said today?" . . . nope, me neither

"Hey SL, did you see what Spence wrote today?" . . . nope, me neither

"Hey SL, did you see Spence's Q-4 Outlook?" . . . nope, me neither

Ya gotta grease the skids every once in a while . . . ya know what I'm saying?

What's the first rule of bartending? I mean come-on, ya gotta throw in a free drink here & there, no?

-------------------------------------------------
It definately makes the final voting pool. Something Chuck Liddel couldn't do.......just saying..........

[SiriuslyLong]

What's the first rule of bartending? I mean come-on, ya gotta throw in a free drink here & there, no?

Well said SRK. Though I don't believe Leno on Stern. Stern is, and has been, all over his ass. Leno hears it whether or not he's on Satellite. There may or may not be an issue with "relevancy" in the main stream media, but as a fan, the Stern show is at its best EVER.

I will take your point one further. Should Stern take his "brand" direct, both the radio show and "on demand" via the internet, he will have become too exclusive for me.

[socalrunningfool]

Sarah Palin Please. ASAP.