The AM Forum

I know there was a thread about Sirius/XM filing for Chapter 11 here, but my question is about the financial thinking on the part of XM to 'buy-out' Sirius and now XM is in financial trouble.
Any money knowledgeable folks shed some light?
Would it have been better to let Sirius sink??

What seems to be the fear of letting something that's NOT working fail???
Fred

Answer is probably in these two paragraphs

From: Sirius XM Prepares for Possible Bankruptcy, dated 2/10/09. Entire article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/technology/companies/11radio.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Also, Sirius bought out XM, not the other way around.

The cost saving just weren't that substantial, and the merger took alot longer than expected. The sat casters had/have a good business plan, just that when both were competing against each other, they both way overpaid for content. Subsequently, they took on far more debt than they could afford. in order for them to even turn a profit, they would need approx. 60 million subscribers.
strictly my opinion, but...
i think bankruptcy would have been better. There really is no stock value to protect thier shareholders from (stock is trading around $.15 a share, off of the 52 wk high of 3.83) protected them from a hostile takeover from Charlie Ergen at Echostar, and they could have renegotiated all of thier debt payments and contracts with talent/content providers. right now the biggest thing killing them is the cost of content. If they could significantly reduce that cost, and then start paying thier creditors, the stock value would climb, even in this economy, which they could use to payoff more debt. As it stands, thier deal with Liberty media only dilutes the company even further, and is just prolonging the inevitable. the debt they have still needs to be re-structured.

Gee, I hope that they continue to broadcast. If they do not remain solvent, then I hope that they continue to broadcast under protection from their creditors. I say this as I just purchased a new-in-the box Polk Audio XM Radio home tuner for our stereo system. I bought the tuner as a close-out and at a fantastic price; I hope the seller does'nt know something here that I don't know!

My guess is the service will remain uninterrupted. There is still an enormous base of Sirius and XM Radio subscribers out there, and most of them I would imagine are quite happy with the existing programming. To this end, I'm sure that a buyer can be found for the service who can hopefully run it at a profit. I personally can always find great music to listen to on either Sirius or XM, and we almost never listen to the terrestrial broadcasters any longer.

A question for the board; what is the digital audio standard used by XM; is it MP-3, CD red book, etc.? I have no idea.

Thanks & 73,

Bruce

Bruce,
It is our (ibiquity Digital Corp.) PAC codec. Sirius XM pays us a royalty to use it.

I also think you're right that it will survive under some incarnation or another, unless Charlie Ergen gets it. he want s the infrastructure, nothing more.

WSJ, today:
"Malone Swoops Down on Sirius XM"
John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. scooped Sirius XM Radio Inc. from the clutches of bankruptcy Tusday with a last-minute deal...

Basically, Liberty loaned Sirius XM $540 million to keep them out of bankruptcy for a 40% stake.  & such a deal: 15% interest  ::)

I'm not familiar with this codec. What is the encoding/decoding standard that these providers (XM and Sirius) utilize? Is it MP-3, CD redbook, DVD audio (which I really doubt!!), etc.

Thanks & 73,

Bruce

PAC codec is used for Sirus.  XM is based on AAC


A blog entry about differences between XM an Sirus encoding:

http://satelliteradiotechworld.blogspot.com/2007/07/technical-highlights-of-xmsirius.html

I can sum it up in a nutshell, the programming is nothing to write home about.

Recently I rented a buggy that had the XM/Sirrus programming. It just isn't that good. Period.

Yeah there are some sort of interesting channels... but it ain't that good.
Howard I like, but he's best on once a day... live.
And ya can't listen to that or the comedy with kidz in the car...

The rest, pleh.

               _-_-bear

The blues channel...my favorite...it has changed  (for the worse) since the meger/buyout...I'm not renewing at $125/year...Comes in fine in the Tum Tum winter but I can't get it in the Alaska summer....Sats are below the horizon....

If it were enormous, they wouldn't be tettering on bankruptcy. Their business model has been flawed for quite a few years. It boils down to not enough subscribers (at least as the rate they are charging) to cover their infrastructure costs. Paying huge bucks to one or two personalities also didn't help. They basically cut their own throats and will never be able to compete with land based 3G and 4G wireless providers.

I am going to let my subscription to XM expire.  The idiotic DJ to music ratio has gotten much worse after the merger and I can get that for free via terrestrial radio.  I have also noticed a fair number of audio glitches in recent months that were very rare previously.  My new CTS fully integrates my Ipod into the touch screen audio/nav system and it plugs easily into the system in my pickup although for that I have to use the Ipod istself for control.  In recent months about the only thing I have listened to on XM is the old time radio channel and I can buy thousands of MP3 recordings of these shows from Ebay for the price of an XM subscription.

It would be interesting to break out the "true" subscriber base as opposed to the total including those who have either a free 90 day or 1 year initial subscription with the new vehicle purchase and the rental car fleets with active subscriptions.  This isn't a company I would want to own a piece of, especially during an economic slowdown.

I think Bruce was asking the data rate that is being sent from the satellite. Throwing out codec names doesn't easily translate to the data rate, ie CD audio, 44.1, or MP3 has different sampling rates.
And being it is a digital stream on an RF carrier, my question, is it equivalent to a DS3 or DS2? Or is it like the data stream from high def TV??
I think I have read on this board that the music channels are around 96kbs and the talk channels are a lower rate and the WX and traffic channels are even lower ??? They still call it audio............ha!!!! Really bad audio there!!!!
And I agree that the merger was not goodness. Some of the DJ's suck..........worse than corporate radio

Fred

I don't know what your terrestrial radio is like, but around here the DJ to music ratio is still 100 times worse than XM.  My blood pressure would go up at least 10 points if I ever had to listen to terrestrial radio again.  The radio antenna from my car is stored in the trunk.

I know I could create my own "radio stations" in mp3, but I'm too lazy to keep the playlist up to date or fresh.

The composite XM signal is about 800 kbps. But it is split between two separate carriers that are combined on the receive end. This two carrier arrangement is replicated on several other carriers for diversity. This 800 kbos then breaks out into 100 channels, each at 8 kbps. These 8 kbps channels are actually two 4 kbps channels. These 4k channels are put together in amounts ranging from 4 to 64 kbps to make up the actual channel you tune to on your XM receiver. Various encoding and related data rates are used depending on the original input (voice, music, data). I think there is even one channel that is running 5.1 surround sound, which probably requires the full 64 kbps allocation.

Not sure how Surrius works but I'm guessing it's similar. They may have to do something special to account for the HEO sats they use.

Thanks HUZ,
What a neat way to break down a lot of channels by using different RF carriers. And then the magic of 'codecs'.
I think this is where some folks have sensitive hearing and can hear certain artifacts in the program material. For everyday listening it's fine. But for the critical ear, it may hurt a little.

Fred

I'll have to differ with my friend Rodger on this one...I've subscribed to XM for years for one primary reason - it was the only place I could hear "real radio" aka "Sixties on Six" -  with its fast-talking DJs, 60's music, classic PAMS jingles, and all the production bits that made what I'll always think of as the golden age of pop music what it was.  Sixties radio was a vibe and a presentation - not just the music, which a $10 MP3 player on shuffle can do.   I also enjoy the OTR and "Book Radio" (aka the much cooled old XM name of "Sonic Theater") also, and wish there were more spoken word programming.  These are not expensive channels to program, because the value comes from talented and innovative who love what they do, not formulas or "stars" with multi-million dollar contracts.

TALK radio is what I can get anywhere on the dial, and could easily live without on satellite radio.  And I'm not a sports person, but I won't bash those who are.   XM had it right, Sirius has been systematically ruining the very thing they acquired, and they're now paying the price for their arrogance.

My real point is, satellite radio was (and maybe still is) a narrowcast medium, where unique program presentations like the "Sixties on Six" could thrive in a subscription mode without interference from consultants who insist that 100% of what is played be recognizable by 100% of the listeners 100% of the time.  Aka "boring and repetitious".

I'm glad that Liberty stepped in, avoiding BK and doubtlessly further staff cuts.   But BK would have allowed restructuring and breaking of the obscenely expensive contracts with Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, etc which IMHO don't fit the business model. 

Hi Bob,

No real disagreement, the old XM channel 6 was great and as a child of the 70's I really like that decades channel also.  I grew up near New Orleans and both WRNO and WNOE were great album rock stations in the seventies with excellent DJ staff.  Marvelous Matt or whatever he calls himself on the "new" Sirius/XM 7 personifies the annoying idiot style of DJ and the playlists have shrunk considerably in variety.  I listen to a lot of different styles of music and until recently XM had a lot of great channels but I found myself using it far less after the changes from the merger.

There are definitely some good and entertaining DJ's, but for the most part Sirius hasn't found them.  Perhaps if they weren't paying Howard and Martha so much they could improve the quality in other areas.  But as one of my colleagues noted, at least Rush isn't on there yet.

Right now my computer is hooked up to a little AM transmitter and I am listening to the Shadow through my "new" Breting 14AX-Old time radio as it was meant to be!

Rodger WQ9E

How does what is on another channel affect the channel you want to listen to? So what if there is sports, talk or gawd even Rush on another channel, as long as you can listen to Sixties on 6? Isn't that what XM is all about, choice?

My new car came with Sirrius for 6 months and I have checked it out. Not sure I can take 24 hours of Dead or Elvis or Bruce, but the comedy and some of the old classic music is fair. The audio quality from the codec is noticably worse than the AAC from my IPOD that also plugs into this car. I give up, and listen to mostly local FM stations as the programming is home done.

So far I see alot of reasons not to buy an entertainment radio that requires a paid $ub$cription in order to use it.

If it was worth it, people would have hacked it by now...  ;)

You "pay" either way.  Either you listen to endless terrestrial radio commercials that fund the cost of distribution, or you pay a subscription to avoid having to listen to commercials. 

The only way to avoid it is to listen to your own material,  listen to Internet radio, or listen to the cable/DirecTV music you might be paying for anyway.

The only other distribution model is PBS, and listening to them beg for money for several weeks out of the year should be outlawed as torture worse than waterboarding.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sirius XM Radio Inc. on Friday said it has closed the $530 million investment deal with Liberty Media Corp. and extended the maturity of certain debt coming due in two months, to 2010.

The completion of the deals gives Sirius XM about a year's breathing room....

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Sirius-closes-530-million-apf-14572714.html

 "  The only other distribution model is PBS, and listening to them beg for money for several weeks out of the year should be outlawed as torture worse than waterboarding.  "

The local NPR station, WRVO, has a Phoneless February..... you can donate money, and therebuy reduce the amount of time they bombard you with a pledge drive.


klc

My biggest issue with satellite is the 'automated jukebox" technology.
And lack of localism, news and weather.

they might have already but good luck, theres not much in the radio, i have pulled mine apart, I dont know much about the delivery method of the music but i am sure there is some kind of encryption going on in there, probably changes and would be on par with trying to hack an encrypted web site. Maybe Mike ZE has some input on this.


and thats what attracts me to it, just music, its like hitting random on an ipod filled with music.
news weather and traffic have always bothered me.
news is so available these days you can get it anywhere (plus they have dedicated news channels)
weather? blah thats as useless as reading the weather forecast on sunday in your local paper, most weathermen are wrong anyways ;)
localism has been dead for years, even on terrestrial radio, but i kinda agree with you on this one.
it is kind of difficult to cater to a local community for satellite but not for FM/AM wich have all become simulcasts for the big media outlets, I remember consultants back in the 90's visiting our radio station flying in from across the country to tell our program director what the people wanted, so now what used to be a localized #1 FM station is now a sad little  broadcast booth in a building with probably 10 other stations

Hi Blaine, long time , no talk...

It is really hard to hack into a sat radio to try and steal programming. Its not like hotwiring a car, there is a lot of encryption going on at the DSP level. I am not sure, but I beleive Sirius/XM uses a company called NDS to do the encryption. They have offices in California and Isreal (they work with the IDF on a lot of thier stuff). Very complex stuff, and beyond my skill set fer sure. The radio is " addressable" via RF, so you would need a signal generator replicating thier signal, but transmitting on thier SDARS frequency, hard to do. Could it be done, sure, but thats a lot of time and $$$ for what, free tunes you can download off of sharing sites on the web and an iPod?

Bill,
 As far as your comments, spoken like a true broadcaster! ;)
It all depends on the station and locale. Driving from Maryland back to NY, I drive through what I refer to as "Pennsyltucky", and there are  alot of small town stations on the air who it seems to me take great pride in thier localism. Some are nothing more than jukeboxes themselves, as the cost of running a station has become more and more of a burden (especially for AM's). As you get closer to any metro area, many of these small town stations were bought up and used as "move ins" to get them closer to the metro area and therefore make the station more valuable. The big conglomerates are only partly to blame. Many mom and pop's moved them in, for the sole purpose of making a big buck once the build was complete, and selling to someone else. Sure the FCC still beats the drum of providing a local service, but lets face it folks, a station license is nothing more than a license to make money, pure and simple. i think that fact is lost on alot people on this board because they want to remenisce of thier youth, about far away stations they heard on a crystal set or a halliscratchers s-38. The fact of the matter is a station is there to make money. That has always been the case, in one form or another. How that station does it, is a whole other story. for the small market station, its localism, and bringing a sense of pride to your community that they "serve".

Just my 2 pennies worth.

Mike

Is HD® Radio faring any better with the younger listeners?

Except for what comes with upscale automobiles, the public young and old alike expects a radio to be a little box that costs under $20. Audio quality is not a significant factor.

I get some good jazz, blues, folk and classical programs on the 3 NPR stations plus a couple more non-commercial independent university stations that I can pick up here. I regularly give a few bucks to one of the NPR stations, but when it comes fund-raising time, I just don't listen to much radio.  I still prefer 10 days of fund raising blabber 3 or 4 times a year to 5-minute long strings of commercials every 10 minutes.

The FCC should limit talk radio to slopbucket.  That would be a good use for both.

"Talk Radio to Slopbucket"..LOL..good comment Don..LOL

I don't know about younger listeners, but this old guy sure enjoys it. The HD radio runs all day in the office and when I'm down in the shack and not on the rig, I have HD tuner running into the 4 channel amplifier. The quality is superb and my choice of music is quite varied. From rock to country to jazz to classical to rap with all types of descriptors before each one. On the sub channels, commercials are minimal or almost non-existent.  And, no subscriptions to pay.

I listen to jazz on on the pillow speaker (WWFM HD-2) when it's too early for the BBC on WHYY   Jazz puts me right to sleep.

I use the internet almost 100% for music listening.    There are many jazz stations.  There are none in this area that broadcast jazz when I want to hear it.   Got the computer connected to an FM stereo transmitter and receive it in the main house stereo.   I wanted to do a direct connection but it was not easy to do.   A local area net and a lap top on the stereo probably will be the next step.

There have been several radio stations around the country that have worked hard to offer decent live programming on both their main and HD multicast channels. West Virgina Public Radio comes to mind with their "Live From Mountain Stage" CDs and multicast channels.

Here in Denver, we've done live shows for years, I've had the pleasure of working with many performers. We burn a CD of our live shows and donate the proceeds to charity to the tune of nearly $500,000 a year. The performers have always been glad to donate their material to charitable causes.

Part of our past performer list: Dr. John, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Ben Harper, Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Bruce Hornsby, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Widespread Panic, Lyle Lovett, Jim Messina, Jackson Browne, Boz Scaggs, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Susan Tedeschi, Richard Thompson, Loudon Wainright, Phish, Bob Weir, Steve Winwood, Jorma Kaukonen, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks (the most gorgeous 60-year-old woman I've ever seen)

All terrific people, the only one who was intimidating (to me) was Robert Plant, who still has the rock star vibe. Not a poseur. He'll jump on you with both feet demanding perfection. (Fortunately, he does leave his shirt on these days). Great story about riding a Harley up the staircase of the Hollywood Hyatt Hotel (called the Riot Hyatt- LOL).

Anyway, we were awarded the first Multicast Music Award from the NAB for our efforts.

When Satellite and the webcasters come even close to what we in humble terrestrial radio have done and accomplished, I'll have a lot more respect for them. It's terribly hard and demanding work, the promotions, the engineering, the interfacing with the bands and artists, and no one in the 'new media' have ever been able to cut it. Just a bunch of narrowcast channels playing off of a Windows computer. Us bunch of hicks in Denver, West Virginia and elsewhere are proud of what we deliver to the public...Including the tornado and flash flood warnings.

Of course, I could be wrong, maybe no one demands anything better in the 21st Century and we're wasting our efforts.

About 10-12 years ago there was a station near Washington, DC that went to all live music. It lasted about six months. Most people want the songs to sound just like the ones on their CDs.

FWIW, XM does live shows once-in-a-while. 

I don't listen to live music shows so I can't comment on the quality.

They also do things terrestrial radio can't. XM does more live baseball games simultaneously in multiple languages than you could ever get any other way. (Not that I'm interested.)

Terrestrial radio stations have have been streaming to IPhones for some time now.

I Heart radio.

http://www.iheartmusic.com/national_radio_tuner/

Once again, satellite does a pale imitation. For money, not content.

Just what I want... streaming commercials.  ::) There is a lot of free Internet radio I would listen to before I would bother with streaming terrestrial radio.