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pkd88 posted:Is it possible it is just too costly to bring all the talent to one place? Radio is probably the worst paying gig in showbiz. Howard's Sirius contract is probably the only real exception to that rule. You are very lucky if you make over a million dollars a year even if you are a top guy. It is the nature of the business where talent gets the shaft. You could get every single major radio star under the Sirius/XM banner for about as much as they paid Oprah and Jamie Foxx. These are also known radio personalities whom are proven ratings winners not TV and Movie stars whom have no radio experience. You have to equate Sirius to Cable Television. You subscribe to Cable for better picture and sound, specialized programing and to be able to get premium programing. Right now Sirius is like getting all your local channels and HBO, there is no other premium content to draw people in. They have plenty of competition in this market now; Pandroa, Slacker, RadioIO, etc. Unless you are a big Howard Fan there is no reason to subscribe to Sirius and that is a problem they need to deal with quickly. Burden posted:They have 20 million subs with most paying 13 bucks a month. They are bringing in like 200 million a month. Probably more. That is a little over 3 billion a year. I know they have debt to pay off, but good lord, pay to get some some talent out of that. The Stern audience is your biggest audience, cater to them. I think Bubba was asking for like 2 million. Is that so much seeing has how a ton of people listened to him? It just doesn't make sense. I have heard there is some funny math with the "20 million subscribers". That is not 20 million active subscribers, it is 20 million total subscriptions ever. The actual subscriber numbers is much lower than that but no one has said. I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 8-9 million which is respectable. They are bleeding money though as most subscribers are not paying 13 dollars a month and they have just been wasteful with money. Ribsauce posted:pkd88, the argument about them not being able to pay talent falls apart when you look at them back up the Brinks truck for Oprah and Jamie Foxx. They spend money, they just spend it like rear end holes. You got it right on the head. It is just like people in the Music Industry, still pretending it is 1994. Your industry is in the shitter, the company is in shambles and what staff you have you can barely pay, but damnnit you are going to spend that money on a circle jerk at a awards show! That money could have been spent on more productive things instead you waste it on a bullshit party for people who won't care or appreciate it. It is not hard to see the problems with the company, nor is it hard to see solutions. I enjoy Sirius as a product and I am going to be sad to see it go but these guys are going to run the ship into the ground. I am amazed that they haven't told Scott Greenstein to take a hike yet.
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Mar 5, 2011 15:12
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Joe Don Baker posted:The playlists are bad. It's not unusual to hear another song by the same band within a couple hours of each other on the same channel. If you ever listen to Alt Nation, they suffer from this, big time. That and Sirius XMU are my two big stations, but Alt Nation is the worst. They might have only 30 songs or so they rotate, a la top 40 radio. And their actual top 40 station...terrible. I used to keep it on at my old job because it was one of the clean stations, and Jesus they played "Nothing On You" by B.O.B. literally once every 70-90 minutes last spring/summer. Djarum posted:It is not hard to see the problems with the company, nor is it hard to see solutions. I enjoy Sirius as a product and I am going to be sad to see it go but these guys are going to run the ship into the ground. I am amazed that they haven't told Scott Greenstein to take a hike yet. Based on what I know about Sirius, Djarum has been dead-on in what he has said. I had a friend that used to work there as a producer on a talk radio show, and it was not a great place to work. The pay was terrible, and also, going back three or four years ago they weren't getting raises. In fact, Howard's first full year there, they were talking on air about performance appraisals and giving the staff raises almost on the SAME day that the rest of Sirius was told that they were not receiving raises that year. Now, I don't blame Howard for that - but I have a feeling that Sirius management could have handled it differently. Howard is nothing if not discreet and had he been told no one else was getting raises, they wouldn't have made a bit out of JD's performance appraisal. Agent Burt Macklin fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Mar 5, 2011 |
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Mar 5, 2011 15:18
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Kelly posted:If you ever listen to Alt Nation, they suffer from this, big time. That and Sirius XMU are my two big stations, but Alt Nation is the worst. They might have only 30 songs or so they rotate, a la top 40 radio. I actually thought that the music stations were going to get a boost when the merger happened as XM's stations were superior in every way. Of course we know how that turned out, Sirius just eliminated the XM version of anything that was remotely similar and got rid of most of the non-contracted staff. I miss Fred, Lucy and Ethel so much it hurts sometimes. Someone who worked at both explained it like this to me; XM was ran by music and radio geeks, Sirius is ran by businessmen.
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Mar 5, 2011 16:16
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Djarum posted:I actually thought that the music stations were going to get a boost when the merger happened as XM's stations were superior in every way. Of course we know how that turned out, Sirius just eliminated the XM version of anything that was remotely similar and got rid of most of the non-contracted staff. I miss Fred, Lucy and Ethel so much it hurts sometimes. Left of Center on Sirius turned into garbage, too. It used to be my most listened to station, but now I barely turn it on. I would say their saving grace is that there is SO much music on there that if you are sick of a station, you can just tune to something else. I am waiting for they day they introduce live reads into the music stations and/or start getting rid of some of the stations for some reason we are not privy to.
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Mar 5, 2011 16:39
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I Call it Van Morrison Syndrome. I have a theory that at any given point you can turn on Sirius and hear a Van Morrison song. Seriously, artists like Van Morrison are all they want to play. You can play him on literally 7 or 8 channels and he fits the channel genre.
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Mar 5, 2011 16:56
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Mr Lance Murdock posted:I Call it Van Morrison Syndrome. I usually find the same to be true for David Bowie. I like the guy, but when I can hear his stuff on 6 different channels at any given time, something is wrong. edit: For all the bitching we do, it's still light years ahead of terrestrial radio.
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Mar 5, 2011 16:59
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Pink Floyd here. I've got them programmed into the memory on my radio. It seems like every 20-30 minutes, the radio beeps. "Artist alert" - Pink Floyd. Now I'm a huge fan, but gently caress..
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Mar 5, 2011 17:09
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Mr Lance Murdock posted:I Call it Van Morrison Syndrome. I get all of the light-ish rock stations confused. The Bridge, Coffee House, The Blend, etc etc. The rock stations are easy to tell apart because they are all so genre specific, the pop stations, not so much.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:11
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Joe Don Baker posted:I usually find the same to be true for David Bowie. I like the guy, but when I can hear his stuff on 6 different channels at any given time, something is wrong. Rebel Rebel.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:17
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Kelly posted:Left of Center on Sirius turned into garbage, too. It used to be my most listened to station, but now I barely turn it on. All the alternative/indie rock stations have gone to shite. Left of Center used to be my favorite Sirius station as well but now it is XMU or whatever it is just unlistenable. I actually haven't listened to a music station on Sirius since soon after the merger, it all just got so bad so quickly. I have no many options to listen to music; Pandora, Slacker, BBC Radio, Last.fm, etc. They are all free and have a much deeper playlist. The BBC also has some of the best radio talent in the world unlike at Sirius. I know some people hate the disc jockeys that come on but that is because at Sirius they get the loving interns and secretaries to put on the air instead of actual radio talent. Before Stern arrived there were some really good jocks on Sirius and then magically they all left. Now you have someone on the air who maybe has been on their college radio station reading prerecorded news and have no idea of the format they are working on. That is why they read articles from Fark or Reddit on the air, they have no idea what they are doing. It's like putting a kid who just got their license into a F1 car to drive the Monaco GP. They don't really know what they are doing and are probably going to kill themselves and you in the process. Also they have got rid of channels and will probably do some more soon. Remember how long people have to bitch to get a Punk channel on Sirius? Then after the merger they killed both of them, including the AMAZING XM Punk channel? Here is what Sirius needs to do in the short term to get itself on it's feet again. 1: Invest in RADIO talent. And this is not just marquee talk radio names, but quality jocks from around the country in various formats. Having a professional sounding product will go a long way to make people feel like it is a product to pay a premium for. 2: Get out of the Satellite business. Support the hardware that is out there but stop producing new hardware and stop selling it. Focus your product online and on mobile devices. That is the battlefield, fight on it. 3: Fire everyone in charge of programing right now. It is pretty obvious they are either incompetent or lazy. The music channels are trash and most of the talk channels are not much better. Get a music geek to run each music station who knows the music to be played on it. Make it exciting, have it sound so much different than what you can get on regular radio or internet radio. 4: Get a new promotions department. This goes hand in hand with the programing, but Sirius really has the worst promotions people on the planet. This Charlie Sheen radio thing is just the saddest thing and it is indicative of how things are done around there. Instead of being a 3rd place market in Bumfuck, Ohio they need to start acting more like HBO. HBO rarely advertises and when it does it shows what premium programing it has that its rivals does not. It is classy. Sirius would dress a guy up in a chicken suit and give away bumper stickers if they could. 5: Get both a free model and a premium pay model. This goes with the internet radio. They are trying to compete with free and they need to have some content for free out there. Have a selection of channels are at the low biterate. Granted, I wouldn't do that until they fixed all the problems with the content first.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:23
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I totally agree with everything except for number 2. They absolutely need to be more aggressive in its online presence and getting their poo poo on mobile devices. However, I don't think they should totally stop making hardware. Not everyone lives in an area with 3G or better coverage. They should probably just make 1 or 2 different receivers and not even bother with the PMP style radios.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:37
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Joe Don Baker posted:I totally agree with everything except for number 2. They absolutely need to be more aggressive in its online presence and getting their poo poo on mobile devices. However, I don't think they should totally stop making hardware. Not everyone lives in an area with 3G or better coverage. They should probably just make 1 or 2 different receivers and not even bother with the PMP style radios. They got more hardware out there than they will ever be able to sell. Also I understand that the plan of making a dual band receiver ended up being a giant failure. If anything they will repurpose the tech into pushing internet radio but that tech has always been a loser for them. I agree not everyone lives where there is 3g, but you have to remember Sirius streaming at BEST is 128k which is easily done on EDGE, most of the stuff is 64k or less. I think if any of the legacy satellite receivers will still stick around for any length of time it will be the OEM Car ones. Either way in a few short years we will have high speed wireless pretty much everywhere. It is better for them to be aggressive in this now instead of wasting time and money on a losing battle. Again this is Sirius so whatever I said, expect them to do the exact opposite.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:51
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I had no idea there was THAT much unused inventory.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:54
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Joe Don Baker posted:I had no idea there was THAT much unused inventory. Why do you think they give out free radios like candy? After Howard first signed to Sirius retailers had a run on hardware so Sirius had make more and more. They falsely predicted that people would upgrade their receiver every few years like a mobile phone. So after that rush ended and retailers were stuck with hundreds of thousands of units that would not sell, Sirius could not sell them the newer hardware. There are evidently a warehouse full of Starmates and the like that will never be sold. XM had the same problem on a lesser scale as most of their hardware was made by 3rd parties. When you got that much obsolete inventory you have problems. I just looked at the website store and they have more NEW HARDWARE! Why is all I ask. I can't imagine they have produced many of any of them as they can't sell them anywhere, especially for what they are charging. There is another giant waste of money down the drain for them.
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Mar 5, 2011 18:12
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Tiger Blood Radio seems to be as unlistenable as anyone might have imagined. I don't know why they didn't just get an ISDN link or whatever to Charlie and let him talk all day. It's not like he'd say no.
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Mar 5, 2011 19:26
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Djarum posted:Why do you think they give out free radios like candy? After Howard first signed to Sirius retailers had a run on hardware so Sirius had make more and more. They falsely predicted that people would upgrade their receiver every few years like a mobile phone. So after that rush ended and retailers were stuck with hundreds of thousands of units that would not sell, Sirius could not sell them the newer hardware. There are evidently a warehouse full of Starmates and the like that will never be sold. XM had the same problem on a lesser scale as most of their hardware was made by 3rd parties. When you got that much obsolete inventory you have problems. Also, one big thing they never did was put more of their selections on Dish Network and DirecTV. I have the former and there's a long list of their channels. Why not Stern? Charge each house $5 a month for the Stern channels and start recouping money that way. They have a shitload of radios, but how many people would they get if they just put the whole lineup on most people's televisions?
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Mar 5, 2011 19:31
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Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:Also, one big thing they never did was put more of their selections on Dish Network and DirecTV. I have the former and there's a long list of their channels. Why not Stern? Charge each house $5 a month for the Stern channels and start recouping money that way. They have a shitload of radios, but how many people would they get if they just put the whole lineup on most people's televisions? That has to do with Stern more than Sirius. His contract is very specific on what they can and can not do. Stern is a notorious control freak and is very protective over his ownership rights. It has to do with him being burned by the guy who put out the record in Washington and then again by Channel 9. His contract specifically states where, how and when his programing can be broadcast. That is why he wasn't on the internet app until the new contract, since to have him on the app they would have had to renegotiate as Stern's reps claim that would be a new medium. Also with the TV thing I believe that conflicts with his In Demand contract who have the exclusive rights to the "Howard Stern Show" broadcast on television. Also you wonder why Howard promotes the crap out of that In Demand crap? You should see the percentage of the monthly subscription rate he gets. I don't know a exact number but I know it is more than In Demand themselves get. It really is amazing the information you get out of people when they are drunk.
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Mar 5, 2011 19:51
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Djarum posted:I have heard there is some funny math with the "20 million subscribers". That is not 20 million active subscribers, it is 20 million total subscriptions ever. The actual subscriber numbers is much lower than that but no one has said. I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 8-9 million which is respectable. They are bleeding money though as most subscribers are not paying 13 dollars a month and they have just been wasteful with money. Newspapers do this too. Well, we go to a home, most homes have 3 people in them... so that means we have triple readers! They also probably let friends borrow the paper, so that could be like 2 more people per paper! And the bird reads the paper the next day at the bottom of his cage! 6 times the readers!
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Mar 5, 2011 20:00
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Djarum posted:Why do you think they give out free radios like candy? After Howard first signed to Sirius retailers had a run on hardware so Sirius had make more and more. They falsely predicted that people would upgrade their receiver every few years like a mobile phone. So after that rush ended and retailers were stuck with hundreds of thousands of units that would not sell, Sirius could not sell them the newer hardware. There are evidently a warehouse full of Starmates and the like that will never be sold. XM had the same problem on a lesser scale as most of their hardware was made by 3rd parties. When you got that much obsolete inventory you have problems. Very good points. They have mailed me at least 4 radios. I think I even have one in the closet when they sent me two accidently (instead of one) I don't even pay right now. I called to cancel about 4 months ago, they offered free time I said I didn't care too, they insisted and it is still on. I also agree about the music, I stopped listening to them because they are not unique channels and rarely have anything interesting on.
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Mar 5, 2011 20:16
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Bonzo posted:As many people in this thread have posted, they will offer anyone a heavily discounted fee just to stay. 20 million subscribers yes but I think only a very low percentage is paying full price. If you buy a new car with a radio already in it, they usually give you one to two years free just so they can count you as a subscriber. They also hand out new radios like candy. One thing that I always notice is the sound quality is not very good. Even if you find a channel that interests you, it is very bland and compressed sounding.
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Mar 5, 2011 20:24
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How do I get a free radio? Right now I have a radio account and no drat radio. I only have it because it made the internet cheaper
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Mar 5, 2011 20:46
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Ribsauce posted:How do I get a free radio? Right now I have a radio account and no drat radio. I only have it because it made the internet cheaper Call them and tell them you want to cancel because your radio is broken or was stolen or whatever. For me it was always breaking.
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Mar 5, 2011 20:49
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AxeManiac posted:Newspapers do this too. Well, we go to a home, most homes have 3 people in them... so that means we have triple readers! They also probably let friends borrow the paper, so that could be like 2 more people per paper! And the bird reads the paper the next day at the bottom of his cage! 6 times the readers! Oh no it is even worse than that scam. Basically they are not removing counting someone if they unsubscribe. So you know all those people who quit because of Bubba, Howard going to 4 days a week or a million other reasons? Yeah it doesn't matter because Sirius doesn't count them. You notice how it always says "Subscribers" and not "Active Subscribers"? When that hooplah about the 20 million happened a few months ago a reporter tried to ask for active subscription numbers and was told "no comment".
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Mar 5, 2011 21:07
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Smeep posted:Tiger Blood Radio seems to be as unlistenable as anyone might have imagined. I don't know why they didn't just get an ISDN link or whatever to Charlie and let him talk all day. It's not like he'd say no. Sheen is doing a live radio show on the internet tonight at 8 through Ustream. Sirius fails to land talent, yet again. edit- vvvv I don't pay for NBC. FogHelmut fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Mar 6, 2011 |
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Mar 5, 2011 23:30
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Why do you care so much about Sirius? Do you care this much when NBC doesn't get Tom Cruise to do a TV show? As long as they have Stern, who cares?
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Mar 6, 2011 01:36
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Djarum posted:That has to do with Stern more than Sirius. His contract is very specific on what they can and can not do. Stern is a notorious control freak and is very protective over his ownership rights. It has to do with him being burned by the guy who put out the record in Washington and then again by Channel 9. His contract specifically states where, how and when his programing can be broadcast. That is why he wasn't on the internet app until the new contract, since to have him on the app they would have had to renegotiate as Stern's reps claim that would be a new medium. This is fascinating. Does this include other on-air talent as well, like O&A and R&F? The only channels there are music only.
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Mar 6, 2011 01:52
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Qaz Kwaz posted:Why do you care so much about Sirius? Because satellite radio is an amazing medium to broadcast and receive content and it would be succeeding spectacularly if Sirius wasn't staffed by the most astonishingly inept team of fools in recent memory.
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Mar 6, 2011 01:55
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Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:This is fascinating. Does this include other on-air talent as well, like O&A and R&F? The only channels there are music only. The people I know don't have as good information about either of them as Stern but, I wouldn't be surprised if they have it as well. It is every radio guy's dream to move over to television and they would be silly to sign over their rights to it. As you have seen and heard over the years entertainment bosses are petty and will try to gently caress over talent if they have the least bit of leverage to. Easiest way to make sure that doesn't happen is to write into the contract that if you are to be on television you get X amount of money and make X obscene. Television people have it wrote into their contracts that they are not allowed to be into alternative media as well. It is just to protect that talent and is pretty standard. Smeep posted:Because satellite radio is an amazing medium to broadcast and receive content and it would be succeeding spectacularly if Sirius wasn't staffed by the most astonishingly inept team of fools in recent memory. You said it as well as I could. Sirius is one of the last places for radio to succeed since FM radio is rapidly dying due to ineptitude. Some of us love radio to death. I guess a lot of the generation growing up now doesn't understand how important it was. I remember the first time I heard a million bands on the radio. It used to be a major part of most people's lives and the way most people learned of new and interesting music. The downfall of radio and the removal of music from MTV has a lot more to do with the state the music industry is in now that piracy in my opinion. But that is a entirely different discussion.
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Mar 6, 2011 02:17
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Smeep posted:Because satellite radio is an amazing medium to broadcast and receive content and it would be succeeding spectacularly if Sirius wasn't staffed by the most astonishingly inept team of fools in recent memory. Apparently you haven't been watching the re-launch of RadioIO
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Mar 6, 2011 03:24
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This article has a picture [resized below] which appears to contradict recent suggestions about Sirius' methodology in counting subscriptions: ragle fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Mar 6, 2011 |
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Mar 6, 2011 03:26
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ch3cooh posted:Apparently you haven't been watching the re-launch of RadioIO That has been a shitshow. They hosed up to the point where they are giving everyone that signed up a free month. Bubba's web team has always been a disaster. Mr Hands Colon fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Mar 6, 2011 |
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Mar 6, 2011 04:03
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ch3cooh posted:Apparently you haven't been watching the re-launch of RadioIO Indeed two months of "free" to work out the bugs and test. Then day one they launch a whole new WordPress front end vs the highly static previous site. Talk about idiotic people.
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Mar 6, 2011 18:00
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ragle posted:This article has a picture [resized below] which appears to contradict recent suggestions about Sirius' methodology in counting subscriptions: If you look at the article it doesn't contradict anything I said. Again look between the lines there all it says is "subscriptions" not "active subscriptions". Basically in that number they are counting every radio ever activated as a subscription no matter if they are a currently paying customer or not.
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Mar 6, 2011 18:13
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It also would not surprise me if they count all the free activations they give away for 6 months with a new car.
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Mar 6, 2011 18:20
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Mr Lance Murdock posted:It also would not surprise me if they count all the free activations they give away for 6 months with a new car.
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Mar 6, 2011 18:26
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Mr Lance Murdock posted:It also would not surprise me if they count all the free activations they give away for 6 months with a new car. They do. They also say that almost 50% of the people with new cars continue with service. I am not sure if those numbers are real as they provide no data to back them up. You have to remember as well Sirius rarely if ever deactivates a receiver. I have a Starmate that was activated for a couple of months when Howard first started then I canceled and still use every so often. It will sometimes get deactivated, I will put it in a box for awhile then hook it back up and it magically works again.
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Mar 6, 2011 18:31
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Viktor posted:Indeed two months of "free" to work out the bugs and test. Then day one they launch a whole new WordPress front end vs the highly static previous site. Talk about idiotic people. You know how Stern throws out money to people to set up his home theater and it never works? Bubba is the same with anyone he hires to do web content.
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Mar 7, 2011 01:18
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Djarum posted:If you look at the article it doesn't contradict anything I said. Again look between the lines there all it says is "subscriptions" not "active subscriptions". Basically in that number they are counting every radio ever activated as a subscription no matter if they are a currently paying customer or not. Uh, why would that number drop from 2008 to 2009?
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Mar 7, 2011 01:49
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ragle posted:Uh, why would that number drop from 2008 to 2009? Since it's all lies, it's probably to make 2010 look bigger than it was or imply an upward swing that they pulled out of.
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Mar 7, 2011 03:58
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ragle posted:Uh, why would that number drop from 2008 to 2009? Awwww poo poo.
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