SM480

Is Wienkes Hobbling Sirius XM?

After reading the recent AP news wire on Sirius from Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes, (10-28-08), I would like to reiterate what I believe is one of the biggest set backs for Sirius at this point in time and that is advertising and the lack there of. I fail to see how someone like Mel Karmazin, who supposedly is really serious about this company, can leave such a lack of visibility and knowledge about his product to the public. Mr. Wienkes wrote “Our lowered estimates and price target reflect further erosion of satellite radio industry demand,”.... He says subscriber acquisition costs, average revenue per user and churn are all moving in the wrong direction.

This company will not fly without subscribers of which there will be none if there is no advertising to promote good content and promo packages and services. No advertising at this time of year, the season for gift giving?! It took 18 months for the merger to go through and there have been a lot of complaints about what a waist of time that was and how detrimental it was to Sirius, and I agree. But apparently Mel really didn't make very good use of that time either in so far as to having a plan to sell the service once the merger went through. I waited after Labor Day to hear from Mel and there wasn't anything from him to really speak of. I thought once the merger went though Mel would have come flying out of the shutes with something to promote this company and get it off the ground in a hurry but he didn't.

Something isn't right; maybe it's just a case of Mel selling us out and this 18 month merger and the bonds and the debt and the apathy are just a way to slowly let Sirius die. Unless they just don't care and want this company to fade away, Mel and company need to get on it big time and promote Sirius to the public. There is no demand in the general public for radio you have to pay for. It has to be promoted.