Sirius XM loses over a quarter-million subscribers in Q1 of 2024

[DavidEduardo]

Here is the link:

And this is the essence:

" Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the home of Howard Stern, reported on Tuesday that it lost 359,000 self-pay subscribers in its satellite radio unit in the first quarter. The decline from a year-earlier loss of 347,000 self-pay subs resulted from fewer trial starts in late 2023 and higher first-quarter churn. Paid promotional subscribers during the latest quarter fell by 86,000 customers, compared to a gain of 66,000 subscribers in the category last year."
My comment: This is despite an intensified push to get subscribers to use the streaming options, both in so-equipped cars and at home or work.

Discussion: Is this a loss of interest in the content, or is this because so many households and people are cutting back on subscription services as the cost of living escalates.

 

[CTListener]

Here is the link:

And this is the essence:

" Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the home of Howard Stern, reported on Tuesday that it lost 359,000 self-pay subscribers in its satellite radio unit in the first quarter. The decline from a year-earlier loss of 347,000 self-pay subs resulted from fewer trial starts in late 2023 and higher first-quarter churn. Paid promotional subscribers during the latest quarter fell by 86,000 customers, compared to a gain of 66,000 subscribers in the category last year."
My comment: This is despite an intensified push to get subscribers to use the streaming options, both in so-equipped cars and at home or work.

Discussion: Is this a loss of interest in the content, or is this because so many households and people are cutting back on subscription services as the cost of living escalates.

A bit of both, I'd guess. I see a lot of the MAGA-type subscribers threatening to cancel on various message boards over Howard Stern's softball interview with President Biden. But the content overall is a problem. Scott Greenstein, the 60-something head of content, is consistently late with artists he signs to dedicated channel deals, giving me the impression he either doesn't follow much current music himself or is too cautious to pull the trigger on a content deal, resulting in bandwidth occupied by an artist who has, as they say, jumped the shark. Carrie Underwood is a good example. She can't even push a single into the airplay top 15 these days, yet SXM gave her her own channel to program. I'm pretty sure Pitbull was a lot hotter commodity in the music world several years ago, before he got his own channel, than he is today. Does anyone even care about Pearl Jam or Phish anymore? Tom Petty is dead, as is Jimmy Buffett, yet their corpse channels grind on.

Cost most certainly is a significant problem, especially with the demographics of people who prefer radio as an entertainment medium drifting upward into their fixed-income/health concerns years. Every rubber stamping of higher royalties for satellite/streaming increases subscription costs, and the discount deals customers can get by begging a CSR can only lower the cost so far.

 

[Kelly A]

Discussion: Is this a loss of interest in the content, or is this because so many households and people are cutting back on subscription services as the cost of living escalates.

My guess is it's cost of living along with an aging subscriber base. Now that more Boomers are transitioning into fixed incomes, luxuries like expensive satellite radio, cable including local TV are one of the first economies. Besides, there are lot's of ad-supported streaming alternatives including podcasts available.

 

[jlalande]

I found this part of the article interesting:

During a morning analyst call, Witz conceded the launch of the new SiriusXM streaming app for some longtime customers had been “disruptive,” but added innovation to reach younger subscribers beyond cars was growing.

I was a longtime XM subscriber, had a subscription for both of our family's cars, and often spent hours each day listening to SXM at work or around the house on their app or web player. Then, late last year, SXM absolutely mangled their app and web player (https://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/siriusxm-new-app-debuts-12-14-2023.768746/), which was also around the same time my promotional rate was about to end and I got a notice that my monthly bill was going to explode.

Had SXM not ruined their online experience, I would've dropped the car subscriptions and kept the online subscription. But I was so annoyed with the new app and website, I thought, screw it, I'll just cancel, and did so in late February. When I canceled, I made sure to let them know I wasn't interested in their online subscription because they had ruined their app. The agent admitted he'd been hearing that a lot, but that they were making efforts to improve the new app.

I missed some of the channels at first (especially "Chill"), but pretty quickly found decent replacements in Apple Music, which I was already paying for through our Apple family plan.

Canceling a SXM subscription is almost as bad as trying to get out of a gym membership (have to repeatedly decline increasingly desperate retention offers and repeat yourself like 20 times before they'll cancel the subscription), so now that I've found alternatives, SXM can send me all the promotional rate mailings they want, I doubt I'll be a customer of theirs again.

 

[Don CT]

It will be interesting to see how Spotify does with their numbers. This could be a trend of everyone cutting corners. Will all the streamers feel a pinch.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Discussion: Is this a loss of interest in the content, or is this because so many households and people are cutting back on subscription services as the cost of living escalates.

The question is where did those subscribers go for music? Amazon? Spotify? Apple? iHeart app? TuneIn? We might have the answer if we could see whose subscription numbers grew during the same period. But you may also be right about subscription fatigue, ugh.

Another question is what is the age of the subscribers who left? I see a lot of enthusiasm on this site, and even 'in the wild', from older listeners to the 60's channel, classical music channels, etc. Even Howard Stern is 70 years old and built his audience over 30 years ago, so how old is that audience now? Could the lost 'self-pay' subscribers simply be dying off, or at least not driving anymore,
not being replaced by younger people who are gravitating to new media platforms instead?

Scott Greenstein, the 60-something head of content, is consistently late with artists he signs to dedicated channel deals, giving me the impression he either doesn't follow much current music himself or is too cautious to pull the trigger on a content deal...

Dedicated artist channels are just record label deals. No one cares.

 

[TheBigA]

Somewhat adjacent to this is a story about Apple Music cutting back on their hosted radio services for pop & country. People seem to prefer unhosted streaming services over the hosted services. Since most of the SiriusXM channels are hosted, similar to traditional radio, could this be a desire to avoid any hosted or curated services, in favor of the basic unhosted music streaming.

 

[boombox4]

Online is king.

Or -- it's getting there. Why restrict yourself to a satellite receiver when you can use Pandora or Spotify (or, I suppose, the SiriusXM app) on your phone, which you always have with you? Or, if you just tell your smart speaker, "hey ________, play some _________."

Sounds like a no-brainer to me. In the 2010's the joke concerning Millennials was they would say "what's a radio?"

Now I suppose that "joke" is extended to "what's a satellite radio, and why??"

 

[Kelly A]

Somewhat adjacent to this is a story about Apple Music cutting back on their hosted radio services for pop & country. People seem to prefer unhosted streaming services over the hosted services. Since most of the SiriusXM channels are hosted, similar to traditional radio, could this be a desire to avoid any hosted or curated services, in favor of the basic unhosted music streaming.

That's a great point that I'm surprised they don't pick up in research. What is the motivation for listeners to pay for a subscription?
Somehow I think they'd find that except for the straight N/T channels, most subscribers would prefer less or no chatty jocks, and more music for their dollar. Besides, I find most of their 'personalities' to be mediocre, or less. Some of these burned-out folks from the 60's or the 80's sound as tired as they probably are. Jocks well past their prime doing voice tracks just sounds insincere and becomes a tune-out. Reminds me of the 80/20 rule. 80% of the listeners who just want music for their subscription, have to put up with the 20% that want to relive the days of radio old.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

My guess is it's cost of living along with an aging subscriber base. Now that more Boomers are transitioning into fixed incomes, luxuries like expensive satellite radio, cable including local TV are one of the first economies.

I can't argue with that. Sirius is significantly more expensive than competing streaming services, so it's a really tough sell on newer "connected cars" where streaming is a first-class option. You can pay $11 a month for a Spotify premium membership, or $23.99 for Sirius with Howard (or $18.99 without). Gee, I wonder.

 

[scanman1]

Finally dropped my subscription after more than 20 years due to both cost and much better alternatives being available online.

 

[secondchoice]

They own Pandora. I guess it couldn't offset the loss of "paying" listeners.

IMHO Pandora just took revenue of radio. Never delivered any value for the shareholders. I guess "P"'s (old stock symbol) only accomplishment harming traditional broadcasting financially.

 

[CTListener]

Acquiring Pandora when it was obvious that Spotify had all the momentum was almost as incomprehensible as it would have been for some company to acquire Myspace when Facebook was growing exponentially. Another example of "too late to the party."

 

[MarkW]

Great points made throughout this thread!

The new app rollout was a trainwreck, and that without question ticked off a material chunk of SXM's incumbent subscriber base.

The fact a non-relevant musician such as Pitbull still has his own channel in prime real estate is absurd. I also agree with the earlier remark regarding Carrie Underwood's channel. The service needs to do a better job pruning or demoting channels of fading artists and backfilling those openings with better content.

Tens of thousands of subscribers (if not 100k+) were also peeved when Deep Cuts was demoted to the 300s.

I also agree with comments above that some folks have subscription fatigue. The inflationary economic environment of the past couple years undoubtedly has led to some consumers finding ways to tighten spending.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Tens of thousands of subscribers (if not 100k+) were also peeved when Deep Cuts was demoted to the 300s.

I still have SiriusXM, but the Deep Tracks switch also annoyed me as I could no longer access the channel on my car receiver...downside of having a 10+ year old automobile. Guess I should just use my phone to stream in the car like everyone else seems to be doing, though I have full access at home via our Roku devices.

 

[radiofan2023]

I'm in my 30s and after my Sirius subscription in my new car expired, I never renewed it. I can get a lot of the same content on YouTube, podcasts, etc. that I used to listen to on Sirius in terms of hosts. There are Stern airchecks/in studio interview videos and Richard Blade airchecks on youtube, Dr. Laura's Call of the Day podcast that has segments as part of it every once in awhile, etc. I'll listen to Sirius when they have free preview weekends on holidays, but that's it. Also, I listen to local and streaming stations and podcasts more than I listen to Sirius, even on the free weekends.

 

[gr8oldies]

Here is the link:

And this is the essence:

" Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the home of Howard Stern, reported on Tuesday that it lost 359,000 self-pay subscribers in its satellite radio unit in the first quarter. The decline from a year-earlier loss of 347,000 self-pay subs resulted from fewer trial starts in late 2023 and higher first-quarter churn. Paid promotional subscribers during the latest quarter fell by 86,000 customers, compared to a gain of 66,000 subscribers in the category last year."
My comment: This is despite an intensified push to get subscribers to use the streaming options, both in so-equipped cars and at home or work.

Discussion: Is this a loss of interest in the content, or is this because so many households and people are cutting back on subscription services as the cost of living escalates.

Anecdotally, a lot of of users were POed at the new "discovery-focused" app, which made it harder to find and keep track of the channels you wanted.

 

[TheBigA]

Funny to read all these comments based on the app or cost, rather than quality of the product. I guess that means the quality of the programming isn't as important as the cost or the technology. SiriusXM launched their service with the idea that it was radio worth paying for. Perhaps they put their attention in the wrong place.

 

[CTListener]

Funny to read all these comments based on the app or cost, rather than quality of the product. I guess that means the quality of the programming isn't as important as the cost or the technology. SiriusXM launched their service with the idea that it was radio worth paying for. Perhaps they put their attention in the wrong place.

They can't do anything about the cost if the fees attached to the music they play keep going up every year. Yeah, they could cut subscription costs and still make a profit, but you know how investors are -- they want to see a certain profit margin and bail out at the first sign of weakness. Settling for less is leaving money on the table.

 

[TheBigA]

They can't do anything about the cost if the fees attached to the music they play keep going up every year. Yeah, they could cut subscription costs and still make a profit, but you know how investors are -- they want to see a certain profit margin and bail out at the first sign of weakness. Settling for less is leaving money on the table.

They could respond the way broadcast radio has responded, by cutting back on the number of on-air hosts or narrowing playlists.