Read more here:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 75652.html

Sirius-XM's news / talk / sports / entertainment channels alone cume 32 million listeners per week! That equates to ~1.8 listeners per subscription before even counting the people who listen to the music channels exclusively.

Stern's self-proclaimed listenership of 6 million (per week, presumably) might not be too far off the mark after all.

I buy it only for the music, but I guess that they didn't bother to count us as we don't listen to the ad spots, we just give'm money every month.
Hope Melvin K doesn't start with commercial interruptions on the music channels, unless he's willing to give us programming for free.

Speaking of which, that was part of the merger (hostile take-over of XM) agreement with the FCC that there would be 4-8 FREE minority run channels (like one to replace the Mexican channel they dropped) on the air within 6 months, then 1 year, now it's been well over a year, and no freebies yet!

I personally think the minority channel requirement is bullsh*t. Do you actually favor that stipulation?

I agree with you completely about commercials on the music channels. That would suck royally, and I sure hope it isn't being contemplated. I enjoy the lack of clutter on the music channels, even though the music choices on some of the rock channels are less than ideal. (I can think of several terrestrial Active Rock stations in the midwest that sound far better than XM 48 / Sirius 20 Octane, for instance.)

And, yes, you are correct that the study was limited to the talk channels because the purpose of the data was to support ad sales efforts.

Are they not losing money hand over fist?? I guess 35 million if true are not enough to cover stern's pay check. They also did not get as many subscribers as they thought they would when he went to Sat. Also all the other over priced so called talent is not making enough money for Sirius-xm. Unless they unload some of there over priced talent they will need to sell Ad's and with the economy the way it is good luck on that.

I agree with you MW about the "free channel requirement"

As for commercials on the music channels, I'm betting in time it will happen. When cable TV first came out, wasn't one of the talking points how cable is commercial free? A few years later, they slowly added commercials to the channels.

I compare satellite radio to HBO, Showtime, Encore, etc. as opposed to basic cable.

Originally though, the selling point for Cable TV was "crystal clear reception, additional channels and commecial free programming"

Keep TV Free

Good Point!

I think he means Oprah's paycheck.

She gets $50 million a year for a namesake only, and the satellite radio channel bearing her brand receives very little listenership.

The incremental subscribers Stern brought to the table easily covers the $100 million spent on his channels annually. His deal is cash flow positive for the company.

From the original business plan....does anyone know how many subscribers XM or Sirius would need to cover their nut?