November 30th, 2008
Did the iPhone kill satellite radio?
A Slashdot post notes the sad state of affairs at satellite radio’s Sirius XM and that it’s starting to look like a “failed” company.
why would anyone want to pay for proprietary hardware and a limited selection of a few hundred stations all controlled by one company?
Since merging a year ago the combined Sirius/XM’s stock has dropped from $4 per share to around 20 cents (a 97% decline), it is losing subscribers and has written off $4.8 billion dollars in stock.
To make matters worse neither Sirius nor XM have released an iPhone application, despite promises from a XM Satellite Radio executive in June 2008. The only alternative is to jailbreak your device and use uSirius.
The iPhone and the advent of free Web streaming via FStream, Pandora, Last.fm, etc. may be the final nail in the coffin for satellite radio’s pay-for-bandwidth business model.
I’m still a subscriber to Sirius because I periodically listen to Howard Stern on the desktop thanks to Starlight. However, I didn’t get Sirius factory installed in our last vehicle because it was part of a cost prohibitive package of options and I don’t like external/third party adapters.
When my current annual subscription expires, It’s going to be hard to justify paying $13 per month for something that I can get everywhere else for free.
Can anything save satellite radio?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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