Well put SRK, thank you for your insight!!!
Hopeful
SIRIUS XM SATELLITE RADIO FORUM
Well put SRK, thank you for your insight!!!
Hopeful
Getting rather boring, eh? Maybe the company, not us, Canadian!Originally Posted by Hopeful
Stick around.
Julie
Lol Julie, the stock is what I meant! I still come here all the time!!!
Take care Julie,
Andy
SEC Approves Rules Expanding Stock-by-Stock Circuit Breakers and Clarifying Process for Breaking Erroneous Trades
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-167.htm
Should be interesting to see how this work and is enforced? Notice this applies to both up and down price moves?
Quote from John from Aug. 9, 2010
"Thats funny Ben because while I believe the market (in general) will go down soon I am thinking beginning to the middle of Sep. (If the Republicans take control of the house in Nov. it will go back up some again and if they get both the house and senate then it will return to what it is today but if they cant get the Bush tax cuts extended then it will go down again huge.)"
I think this is an example of why its silly to bet on the short term direction of the stock market. Yesterday Republican Minority leader Boehner seemed to indicate that he would vote for the retention of the middle class tax cut without the retention of the tax cut on the richest top 2%. Market doesnt seem to have reacted negatively so far. Should be very interesting if the market "will go down again huge" because they dont keep the tax cut on those top 2% as John predicts.
i think this is exactly why John refused to answer my 2 specific questions about his predictions on the market. Being forced to be specific opened him up to the possiblity that he would look like even more of a 'dumbass'.
Last edited by Havakasha; 09-13-2010 at 10:56 AM.
Sirius Looks Fit to Outgrow Howard Stern
If shock jock Stern lands elsewhere, analysts say Sirius XM Radio should keep attracting listeners—and at lower cost By Olga Kharif
Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) may keep adding listeners, fueling a stock rally that has lifted the satellite radio provider by 74 percent this year, notwithstanding the prospect of losing famed shock jock Howard Stern.
Stern, 56, credited by Standard & Poor's (MHP) analyst Tuna Amobi for attracting as many as 2 million subscribers when he moved his show to Sirius in January 2006, suggested last week that he may leave satellite radio when his contract expires. Stern's five-year, $500 million contract includes his pay and that of his staff. When the show made its debut, Sirius awarded Stern and his agent stock that was then valued at more than $200 million, saying he was luring enough listeners to warrant the payment. While Amobi says 200,000 to 300,000 fans may drop the service if he departs, customer growth overall will continue and Sirius can build sales with the money it saves on Stern.
"If he leaves, it frees Sirius up, cost-wise, to add more talent," Amobi tells Bloomberg Businessweek.com in an interview. "The threshold where they'd consider letting him go today is a lot lower than before. They can grow without him."
Sirius was little changed, at 1.05, on Sept. 10 in Nasdaq trading. The shares have gained 5.2 percent since Sept. 2, when Stern told listeners that he's "pretty sure" he'll exit satellite radio next year, according to Orbitcast. Patrick Reilly, a spokesman for Sirius, didn't return calls requesting comment. On a conference call last month, Chief Executive Officer Mel Karmazin said the company hoped to have an announcement prior to the release of third-quarter earnings "as to what is going on with Howard."
no "material" survivor loss?
Sirius will probably add 1.1 million subscribers this year to the 18.8 million it had at the end of 2009, says Amobi. It may add a further 1.4 million in 2011, he says. While initially interested only in Stern, many fans have since found additional Sirius channels that appeal to them, he says. Among the converts is Beth Porter, a stay-at-home mom who lives in Concord, Calif. She signed up for Sirius service in 2006, specifically for Stern. Now she also tunes in to the Hits 1 and Raw Dog Comedy channels. "I'd start listening to music and comedy channels" more if Stern leaves, Porter, 43, says in an interview.
Stern no longer brings in significant numbers of new listeners, Amobi says. If an existing programming contract isn't renewed, "we have no reason to believe that any such subscriber loss will be material to our business or financial condition taken as a whole," Sirius said in a June 30 filing.
With Stern's contract accounting for more than a fourth of the company's total annual programming and content costs last year, Sirius may be better off spending lesser sums on a greater number of lower-profile hosts, says Susan Kevorkian, a program director at IDC, a research firm in San Mateo, Calif. "They'll have presumably more money at their disposal to experiment with new channels and see what resonates with their existing subscribers," Kevorkian says.
Sirius pays other well-known hosts such as Martha Stewart a fraction of Stern's compensation. The radio company and Stewart agreed to a four-year, $30 million deal in 2005. Sirius declined to say what Stewart's current contract is worth. Last year, the company had a loss of $342.8 million and reported spending $370.5 million on programming and content. It reported a profit in each of the past three quarters.
similar deal "wouldn't pass muster"
Sirius says it's working to lower programming costs as it negotiates with content providers, including Stern, the National Football League, and Nascar. The costs "are expected to decrease as various agreements expire and are renewed or replaced on more cost-effective terms," the company said in the filing.
"If they were to pay anything [like what] they paid before, it wouldn't pass muster," S&P's Amobi says, referring to Stern. While offering Stern lower pay and a shorter contract is an option, the radio host said earlier this year that he has been fielding calls from potential employers. John Hogan, CEO of traditional radio operator Clear Channel Communications, said in January that "we would be the most logical company for him to optimize his exposure and financial return."
Clear Channel declined to comment. Neither Stern nor his agent, Don Buchwald, returned calls and e-mails seeking comment. Stern has speculated on his show that he may start a Web-only program or offer one through a mobile application. "Howard Stern has an established presence and legions of followers," says IDC's Kevorkian. "If anybody can make it work, Howard Stern can."
One fan, Harris Damashek of Brooklyn, N.Y., says he would pay $20 to $30 a month for a Stern mobile app, in addition to his Sirius service. "I enjoy listening to Howard's take on everything," says Damashek, 35, who makes mobile apps. "I'd build a mobile app for free for Howard."
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...910_414287.htm
A giant An-124 Ruslan cargo plane has landed at the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan with a telecommunications satellite that will be launched for Sirius XM radio in mid-October, the Russian Space Agency said on Sunday.
The Sirius XM-5 satellite and an array of support equipment were unloaded and taken to a clean room for final assembly and testing, Roscosmos said on its website.
The launch is expected to take place on October 14. The satellite will function as an in-orbit spare for the Sirius XM satellite radio network. All four previous Sirius satellites were launched on Proton rockets.
The October launch will be the sixth time a Proton-M heavy carrier rocket has lifted off with a foreign satellite in 2010. Three other Proton-M rockets have orbited Russian satellites.
The final assembly of the rocket started at Baikonur last month.
MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti)
http://en.rian.ru/science/20100912/160566767.html
Karmazin to Present at the Bank of America Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference
NEW YORK, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- SIRIUS XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) today announced that Mel Karmazin, its Chief Executive Officer, is expected to speak at the Bank of America Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Newport Beach, CA, on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at approximately 8:45 am PT (11:45 am ET).
An audio webcast of the presentation will be available via the Investor Relations section of the company's website, www.sirius.com, at approximately 8:45 am PT (11:45 am ET).
I hope this one goes better than Mel's presentation 2 years ago, September 12, 2008 . . . remember this beauty?
"Are there people who would like to invest in our company?" the CEO asked at one point, in response to an analyst's question. "In my opinion, the terms -- and I've not had any discussions on it, because obviously there's very few people that want to invest at a price that's double...or triple what the market is saying it's worth. But we never thought that our 441 converts were something that we were going to have to deal with. As we got into 2008, it became apparent at the beginning of this year that we're going to have to take it out. The debt market -- not necessarily the publicly traded debt market, but the bank market -- as ugly as banks are, and as much as they don't want to use their balance sheet, and as much as they don't want to do it, we have been encouraged."
"At this point, am I going to lend the company the money?" Karmazin asked rhetorically. "I hope not. I hope we don't get to that."
Last edited by Sirius Roadkill; 09-13-2010 at 12:32 PM.
http://marksfriggin.com/news.htm
Howard Staying Silent About Contract Negotiations? 09/13/10. 8:15am
Howard took a call from a guy who asked if Howard was dropping a bomb saying that Robin and Nancy Sinatra sent him wine and if that was about his signing with SIRIUS. Howard said he would rather not talk about what's going on with that right now. He said that the wine came out of the blue and had nothing to do with his contract. He's not talking about what's going on with that at this point.
aha! I guess "1221" finally had enough . . it's one thing to negotiate on-air Howard . . it's a whole 'nother thing to bad-mouth the entire business enterprise in the process
I logged on just to ask you if you heard this!!! Howard completely blew it off. I wanted to call the wrap up show and see if they got any vibe. I certainly did.
Reply With Quote