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SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

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Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#31

Post by chiefalchemist »

jbob2000 wrote: post #14
heavymark wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to, "Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone?" you don't if you only listen to music or content accessibly on your preferred streaming service. Their strength is in their specific content, most notably Howard Stern to note one. If and when Apple Music/Spotify gets and/or can take away that big talent then yes Sirius will eventually be dead…

Sirius is in a tough spot. I've heard from many people that they only listen for Howard Stern. If Howard was smart, he'd pivot to selling podcasts and doing live streaming like Joe Rogan. He could cut out the sirius middleman and bring much more money home. There are so many places to get news that I'm actually surprised to hear that sirius is an important place for you to get yours.

Stern is smart :) He obviously could do that but can't be bothered. He's not starving to death. So unless he's going to leverage his brand to build others and broaden his (a la Oprah) by having a family of stations under his control then it's probably not worth it to him. How can he not go to bed thinking, "I'm one of the luckiest schmucks in the world"?

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#32

Post by 01100011 »

josefresco wrote: post #21
jbob2000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving. So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll p…

"Why do I need satellite radio" I'll answer my myself: For my car(s). SiriusXM just ... works. No pairing, no bluetooth on/off dance, no cables, no unpairing my wife's phone, no setting my car radio's source, Internet connection or not ... it just works. The only other time I listen to "satellite" radio is in my office, streaming from my Chromebook - which is just silly but don't judge me.

I've had Sirius for

bugs me is that

drive under a tree or overpass. Seriously, having

really bugs me.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#33

Post by bpick »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. Saddly this is almost all self inflicted. While Spotify, Apple music and Google music really worked hard to get people to actually pay for the service Pandora continued to act like it was a VC backed company in hyper growth mode long after that was the case. They fought with the record labels longer than most of th…

Pandora spent much more effort attempting to get me to sign-up (and re-sign-up) than they ever did trying to retain me.

The customer service experience was harrowing, featured slow response times, an indifferent attitude to my issues and a wholly inadequate resolution leading me to quit the service.

Every so often I would see news coverage about them struggling and all I could think was, "guess things on the customer service side haven't changed."

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#34

Post by Aloha »

jbob2000 wrote: post #5
relaunched wrote: post #3

This makes me side. I am a long-time, paid subscriber. We'll see what happens next, fingers crossed. I'm not sure if this was a win for the team or a mercy killing. But, if someone can explain what's in this for customers, that would be very helpful.

SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving. So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll p…

I like the randomness of content that I didnt program.

Also, effectively XM was the winning company - its the XM platform that continues on, and the XM billing platform as well - its more like XM bough sirius.

If you travel in places without good data, XM is invaluable to have.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#35

Post by crooked-v »

cptskippy wrote: post #24
wil421 wrote: post #9

Cancelling Sirus is always interesteing. I always say I don’t want to pay the $90 or however much for 6 months of access. No $50 is also too high. How about $30? Ok sure I’ll pay. I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It’s like $20 a month and I’ve forgot to do it my self for a couple months. Pandora always had the best selections on their radio channels. Spot…

After buying an XM enabled car from a dealership, I was extremely disappointed when I started receiving weekly mailings and phone calls from them as my "trial" was expiring. I am still pissed off about the lengths I had to go to in order to stop receiving communications from them. They refused to remove my contact information from their system and could not promise I wouldn't be contacted again in the future. I had t…

I got the mailings (though not phone calls) when I recently bought a used car with a SiriusXM radio (2012 model), though they stopped completely by about two weeks after the trial period ended. They may as well have not bothered, since the car didn't have a nav system built in so I was piping all the audio from my phone anyway.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#36

Post by sigstoat »

wil421 wrote: post #9

Cancelling Sirus is always interesteing. I always say I don’t want to pay the $90 or however much for 6 months of access. No $50 is also too high. How about $30? Ok sure I’ll pay. I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It’s like $20 a month and I’ve forgot to do it my self for a couple months. Pandora always had the best selections on their radio channels. Spot…

> I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It’s like $20 a month and I’ve forgot to do it my self for a couple months.

they don't really have an ongoing per-customer costs, right?

so long as they extract the all the money you're willing to pay them, be it $20 or $90, that's fine. i expect they worry more about total customer count.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#37

Post by bunderbunder »

nsxwolf wrote: post #11
jbob2000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving. So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll p…

It's built into my new car's stereo system, and it's as quick and easy to use as an FM radio. Using my smartphone and various services takes more effort.

Smartphones are getting increasingly well-integrated into the car's stereo, though - especially in the Appleverse.

From a contingency planning perspective, even if their business is healthy now, they might also want to hedge against a long-term decrease in private car ownership. We're seeing quite a few trends that point in that direction: increasing use of ride share services, self-driving cars, wealthier folks moving back into the cities, increasing cultural interest in moving away from motorized transportation as the default, more remote work.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#38

Post by bearcobra »

jbob2000 wrote: post #14
heavymark wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to, "Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone?" you don't if you only listen to music or content accessibly on your preferred streaming service. Their strength is in their specific content, most notably Howard Stern to note one. If and when Apple Music/Spotify gets and/or can take away that big talent then yes Sirius will eventually be dead…

Sirius is in a tough spot. I've heard from many people that they only listen for Howard Stern. If Howard was smart, he'd pivot to selling podcasts and doing live streaming like Joe Rogan. He could cut out the sirius middleman and bring much more money home. There are so many places to get news that I'm actually surprised to hear that sirius is an important place for you to get yours.

The entire US podcast ad revenue in 2017 was $314 million. Stern is paid $80 million a year. Seems like the smarter choice.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#39

Post by MrEfficiency »

iammiles wrote: post #19
chollida1 wrote: post #2

Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago. Saddly this is almost all self inflicted. While Spotify, Apple music and Google music really worked hard to get people to actually pay for the service Pandora continued to act like it was a VC backed company in hyper growth mode long after that was the case. They fought with the record labels longer than most of th…

> And when everyone else was letting you select any music you wanted in playlist, they insisted on staying radio style only. This is really the nail in the coffin. After a couple days on a Spotify trial, I converted to a paid Spotify account. The only reason I logged onto Pandora after converting was to get the list of my favorited songs to add to my playlist on Spotify.

Radio was cool but they repeated songs too much. The thumbs up and down would ruin the radio algorithm.

I would thumbs down live versions or comedy skits, then it would skew the entire system.

This was years ago.

Re: SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion

#40

Post by sf_rob »

cptskippy wrote: post #24
wil421 wrote: post #9

Cancelling Sirus is always interesteing. I always say I don’t want to pay the $90 or however much for 6 months of access. No $50 is also too high. How about $30? Ok sure I’ll pay. I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It’s like $20 a month and I’ve forgot to do it my self for a couple months. Pandora always had the best selections on their radio channels. Spot…

After buying an XM enabled car from a dealership, I was extremely disappointed when I started receiving weekly mailings and phone calls from them as my "trial" was expiring. I am still pissed off about the lengths I had to go to in order to stop receiving communications from them. They refused to remove my contact information from their system and could not promise I wouldn't be contacted again in the future. I had t…

Sirius and Onstar are two of the worst things about my car purchase. I wonder the degree to which these partnerships hurt these car brands for short term profit.

Things I want in an OEM receiver: 1) Carplay/Android Auto, 2) Software updates for 1, 3) Radio, 4) To never do anything else (call me, install bloatware apps, reorder menus, etc).

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