Hippocritical Ass

Sirius Satellite Radio: Expecting Extreme Profitability

You say, "In short, we view current and historic SIRI losses as investments for the future. "

This statement makes no sense. Over the last 2 yrs they have lost 2 billion dollars. At least half of this is directly traceable to the hiring of Howard Stern (if you don't believe it look at the losses analysts projected a month before Stern was hired). There is a billion dollar loss from Howard Stern that you want to call an investment for the future.

The problem is that Sterns contract is up in 3 years and SIRI gets killed no matter what happens. If Stern signs again, it is another 600 million (or more) over 5 years and he is not going to bring another 1.2 million listeners when he signs. If Stern doesn't sign, last week's Arbitron ratings make it clear that SIRI doesnt have much else to offer -- it is clear from those ratings that XM offers the more attractive content package other than Stern. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

You say, "While XM and SIRI may both be good investments, we view SIRI as a comparatively better investment due to its superior content and choice management team as well as its higher growth rates."

What superior content is that. I refer you, once again, to the Arbitron ratings that came out this week. In these, only Stern, with a following of 1.2 Million (vs. his previous 20 million) defeats XM. See orbitcast www.orbitcast.com/arch...

XM has had its problems but SIRI's management still suffers from the overhang of the prior management. What, exactly, has SIRI's current management done that the previous management didn't do? Answer: Cut costs by cutting content quality. That's it. Is that the future of satellite radio?