How can Sirius XM make money?

The concept of crystal clear, CD quality like radio with music you want to hear, and little to no advertising is dreamy.

Can you get in tune?

Imagine hopping in your car and hearing exactly what you’re in the mood for, by your favorite artists, with no repeats unless you want to hear it again. What if you can push a bottom when you hear a song you like, and it would be automatically saved to your user profile so that when you’re listening to Sirius XM in your house, online, or on your portable device, you can listen to your custom playlist?

That would be amazing, however, it’s just not happening yet.

Back when it was just Sirius I was a big fan of the satellite radio concept, it seemed like it would be great, and it was pretty affordable too.  Recently I looked into pricing, and of course it was moderately higher.  For any type of audio service, whether it be satellite radio, unlimited mp3’s, or streaming audio, I definitely think $10/month is a cut off point.  It’s just one of those numbers where it doesn’t look to expensive, it’s easy to calculate, and hey, what’s $10.

If I ran Sirius, I would buy some traditional radio stations across the country and create playlists that are attractive to the demographics of that area. If yuo have some stations in Alabama, play the Sirius Country and Western channel, if you’re in Compton California, play the Shade 45 Hip-Hip channel.

“What?” You say.  “We’re not giving away our Debt laden Sirius programming for free!”

You’re right, that would be silly.  However I would put ads on the station, and maybe make it lower quality, perhaps put it on some AM stations.

The concept is easy.  Just like with your cable provider, they usually give you a free preview for a few weeks, and you get to see what you are missing.  As you get pulled into all this great stuff you are missing, you’ll figure out how you can make it worth it to sign up.

This doesn't sell subscriptions..

If you have never heard any Sirius programming,  and you don’t really know 100% what it’s about, do you really think a billboard is going to sell it?  When you buy a new car, it comes preinstalled, most new car stereos you buy now have it installed, and if you need a stand alone unit, many of them are under $100.  So why are people waiting?

If you buy 3 grande lattes at Starbucks, you’ve already spent your monthly fee and then some, and this is usually in the same day!

Let the people know what they are missing, and how it will improve their commute, and the subscriptions will come.  Easy.

I wish Michael Jackson lived forever

You probably think i’m weird.

I have a great reason though.

No one really cared when he was alive, and his name was dragged through the dirt. Sure he was on the weird side, but he took a lot of abuse. Now he’s dead, and I can’t go anywhere, or turn on the radio and not hear Michael Jackson. I am completely sick of hearing Michael Jackson songs, and to make it worse, all the god damned remixes.

If Michael Jackson was still alive for ever, we would have never heard another Michael Jackson song, except for Thriller at Halloween, because that’s mandatory.

We can always hope for him to come back as a zombie, however that probably doesn’t happen too often.

The NEW Flow 93.5

New?

Toronto’s hip-hop radio station was something that people looked forward to for year when it was first started.  In Toronto if you wanted to listen to the radio, you only had a few formats to choose from.  Rock, Dance, Country and Talk.  That’s it pretty much.  Flow 93.5 was to break the mold by becoming Toronto’s first and only hip-hop radio station.  Even though it was considered to be mainstream, it was nice to have a choice of something different.

Unfortunately in the last few years everything changed. The  hip-hop has been replaced with dance and house music, and any little hip-hop that is played is scarce, repetitive and usually so mainstream it sounds like Britney Spear remixes of mainstream hip-hop.

Wow.

It didn’t take too long to completely sell out.

People want to get paid and have their glory, so why not abandon the people that made you to run after the people that wouldn’t give you the time of day because you were too “urban” and played “black people” music only “black” people liked.

Flow 93.5 is now called “The New Flow”, meaning “The New White Washed Flow” that now aims to please a whole different audience, leaving their previous audience dying for another hip-hop station to pop up and fill the void.

I used to listen to flow, I’m not into mainstream hip-hop, but for the drive, I could adjust.  Now, every time I tune into Flow, there’s music I don’t recognize, and don’t care for.

Thanks Flow.  You let a lot of people down.  I hope the white suburban audience you’re chasing treats you well. Sell outs.