Will Take Rate On Best Of Determine the Future Of Opie And Anthoy?
Facts are facts, and if all of the channels of Sirius and XM were available for all listeners, the chances of Opie and Anthony remaining on satellite radio would be more narrow. Thankfully for fans of O & A, the merged company will be offering “legacy” service for quite some time, and it is for this reason that I believe that an agreement will be reached to keep Opie and Anthony on board. At least for a while.
In my opinion we will see somewhat of a trial run for O & A. With BEST OF being launched in a couple of weeks, the company will get a chance to see exactly what type of demand Opie and Anthony will have with current Sirius subscribers. In my opinion, the XM crossover will to gain Stern will be substantially stronger than the Sirius crossover to gain Opie and Anthony. Future negotiations will likely take such data into consideration, and could become a determining factor in how long the current deal will last, and if future deals will come to fruition.
Opie and Anthony are no stranger to being in a position of consumers having to pay extra. When they first launched on XM they were an add-on service that came with a fee. Ultimately XM abandoned that business model, raised the base subscription price and made the shock Jock duo part of the overall satellite radio package. When O & A were a premium service, rumors had circulated that the numbers of premium subscribers were not what XM had hoped for. This will be the second time around for O & A to be part of a premium service.
Being from Massachusetts, I am quite familiar with Opie and Anthony, and like their show. I think the duo are talented as well as entertaining, however, they simply do not stack up to Stern in terms of audience size, cache, and ad revenue. How may morning drive shock jocks can the service have, and at what price point.
In a perfect world, the day would shake out to allow fans to access all of the shows from all of the “shock jock” channels without having to choose one over the other. Perhaps Stern in the morning, followed by Opie and Anthony, then Ron & Fez, then Bubba. Somewhere, there may have to be a cut on the team, or someone will get stuck with the 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM slot. One thing we know is that the popularity of the Sirius and XM shock jock talent will include data from BEST OF crossover and listener input.
Position – Long SIRI
XM has more subscribers. Subscribers who want Opie&Anthony already have XM. And how will we know if XM subscribers want Howard or the NFL? And on the other side ,how will we know if Sirius susbcribers want NHL, MLB(at some point) or O&A?
They have great numbers on the XM side that will carry over. If they have 200,000 to 500,000 listeners, why would they get rid of them even if nobody on the Sirius side subscribes?
There are not going anywhere. Why the hell would they be part of the best of package, if they were going to get canned soon.
One thing is for sure, the days of the big bucks contracts are over if satrad is to survive. New contracts will likely be more than fair, just no longer astronomical.
Please stop calling them shock jocks.
If they are dropped from Sirius/XM, my subscriptions will follow. I will then flush my units down the toilet and F my mother.
If I want to listen to music… it’s called an iPod.
Agree Tyler.
Awesome, John Riggins is back on the Sirius NFL Network.
Sorry to change subject but why wasn’t the CFO webcasted today on the sirius site or did I miss a link somewhere?
O & A will last up to the interoperable radio release next year or to the expiration of their contract. For every customer that says they like satellite radio for the talk shows, there are at least two who say they like it for the music. It will all come down to the numbers which will be carefully monitored/measured. This is one area wherein Karmazin is an expert. The story goes that Mel was famous for paying big bucks for on-air personalities, while being a penny pincher everywhere else.
Thanks FCC:
What I was told, was that these high yeild bond conferences are NOT webcast, because they actually want the high dollar people to show up to the conferences.
Who would show up and pay to get in when they could just watch it on the web an hour later?
I will be subscribing to the “best of XM” but for the College Sports. Have you seen what has happened to Sirius’ College Football this year? I mean, it was decimated by the loss of the SEC. I hope they can offer the SEC to Sirius subscribers.
Maybe there isn’t a big rush to get whatever contract issues are going on with Sirius-XM and MLB so that they can use the “Best Of” opportunity to gauge O&A’s popularity??
I think that most people who wanted O & A got XM if that was what they wanted.. or got Sirius if they wanted Howard.. I’m not gonna add Howe to my sub.. and I suppose that makes me un-american or something.. I listen to the boys on replay and even live when I think to switch the radio over there early enough.. I hope they aren’t run out of XM (sirius XM) becaust they (believe it or not) were first to do that shock jock thing on sat radio..
Opie and Anthony are both POS! They are third rate hacks worse than Bubba. THEY WILL NOT BE RE-SIGNED. On XM they had a total of 35,000 listeners which is basically a 0 share.
The things they said about Howard’s daughters makes them chicken s***s in my book. Kids should ALWAYS be off limits.
They had dismal ratings on TR and they have hardly any listeners now, while Howard is somewhere in the 10M range of listeners.
And no, not having Howard is not un-american but being a fan of O&A makes you losers and cowards like them!
They have ripped OFF (that’s right) Howard for years.
Please…the only reason they were the first is because their butts got canned from TR for POOR ratings and stunts they ripped off Howard.
Take a look at Howards and O&A’s ratings throughout the years and Howard CRUSHED them EVERYWHERE.
Yeah, they were signed by a fledging XM company which is why they were the first not because of their talent. When they came on XM, they were charging $1 for subscription to their show and had a measley 35K subscribe. Howard brought MILLIONS in months! FACTS!
When Howard went to Sirius, who ended up surpassing XM and then ended up buying XM? Howard IS the reason Sirius and satellite radio in general have grown they way they have in the past 4 years NOT O&A. Mel Karmizan KNOWS who is bread and butter is and it is NOT O&A!
O&A STINK!