New owners of Sirius-equipped Certified Pre-Owned BMW and Mercedes-Benz vehicles will start to get a 3-month trial subscription of the "Sirius Everything" package. Of course, Sirius will continue to be offered as a factory-installed feature with 1-year of the "Sirius Everything" package on BMWs, and 6-months on all model year 2010 Mercedes-Benz vehicles, sold in the U.S.
It's a tough economic environment right now, and automakers are feeling this more so than many other industries. The benefit of these pre-owned deals are pretty obvious: it extends the effective "lifespan" of each OEM-installed receiver, plus it opens up more channels of exposure to trial.
"The past 2 years have been especially successful for BMW new vehicle sales, and a record number of customers have embraced the Sirius XM experience," stated Joan Horst Pre-Owned Manager - Marketing, BMW of North America. "Consequently BMW is seeing more and more vehicles entering the Certified Pre-Owned BMW Vehicle Program with Sirius hardware already operational. The next logical step is to add a special program to introduce CPO buyers to the pleasure of Sirius XM."
You can bet we will continue to see more announcements like this one as time goes on.
"The past 2 years have been especially successful for BMW new vehicle sales, and a record number of customers have embraced the Sirius XM experience," stated Joan Horst Pre-Owned Manager - Marketing, BMW of North America. "Consequently BMW is seeing more and more vehicles entering the Certified Pre-Owned BMW Vehicle Program with Sirius hardware already operational. The next logical step is to add a special program to introduce CPO buyers to the pleasure of Sirius XM."
You can bet we will continue to see more announcements like this one as time goes on.
Nice Car much better than the american crap!!
Nice car!! much better than all the american gas suchers!!!
HE'S ALIVE! HE'S ALIVE!
well that is 6 months that they can claim they count those as paying subs
Orbitcast is a day late and a dollar short. ZZZZzzzz
Great, another opportunity to pad sub numbers by counting more parking lot subs.
If this company put half the thought into programming that it does into accounting tricks perhaps they wouldn't be on the verge of collapse.
BMW and Mercedes suckering customers with a worthless Sirius trial (aka the crutch) on Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles, next week they are going to also burden customers with tires with slow leaks. All for a**holes whole buy foreign auto's from BMW and Mercedes to stroke their fragile egos.
I hope they do this for Chrysler soon.
Saw a hyundai car tv ad they come with it also.
You're absolutely right.
For a real no BS example:
I got a customer survey from SiriusXM about two weeks ago. I did the obligatory "fill in the score dots" (mostly 3-7's with 10 being highly satisfied). I then expressed my opinions in the comments section that I was disatisfied with the direction the company was going since the acquisition,declining quality in programming,the substitiuion of inferior Sirius channels,the total hack job they have done with the comedy channels,and basically the train wreck they have caused post acquisition. I received a reply that a programmer would call me at my pnone number of record concerning my disatisifaction. As this morning I haven't got one phone call.
That dear readers/posters is a shining example of how this company is being run plain & simple.
Mel & his minions are doing what they do best which is doing a bunch of smoke & mirrors stuff all the while the stuff that REALLY matters is suffering from a serious case of neglect.
Recondo72:
YOU... are absolutely right! The surveys are a joke; have filled them out many times - never any feedback whatsoever. This company just doesn't care about its subscribers, and I don't think they ever will. The sub count and the stock price are a DIRECT REFLECTION of their SERIOUS NEGLECT.
Everybody can crunch numbers and theorize and prognosticate till they're blue in the face; this company is going NOWHERE until they practice a little humanity and stop treating their customers like dog shit.
Absolutely,Hear-Hear!!
Re: "Number-crunching" wizards
On another site the screen is full of so called day-trading "experts" who are reading the tea leaves and every technical minutia they can to get the maximun benefit of a .1% rise in the stock and will rationalize anything that even remotely looks positive if it will yeild them that .1% uptick all the while totally ignoring the basics of what it takes to have something worth a damn. Even this site appears to hang on to a single word or action concerning OEM sales like that is the only thing in SatRad's future. When you buy an aftermarket or portable unit you are comitting to a system and not just going along for the ride because a OEM is already there and you really haven't made any effort to investigate what you are getting.
I know,I know, I'm somewhat of a purist but it was people like us who were the first group to subscribe,the most passionate, and the ones who spread the word like NO AMOUNT OF ADVERTISING COULD EVER DO!!! And what do we get? Like you posted, we get shit on that's what.
The way Mel & his minions are running this train they all deserve to fail. Unfortunately the "number crunching" wizards and "yes-men" always seem to get off at the last stop before the wreck happens. Basically because they know the wreck is coming - that's why.
Just too bad Ted Turner has gotten soft. We need someone like him to bring back what once was the greatest step in radio since the "Underground FM" days to something to proud of again. The way things are now, I hardly discuss SatRad to anyone. That wasn't the case two years ago.
Reciondo72:
I have been on that site for the last half hour, and my head is ready to explode! The technical analysis and the bitching at one another is enough to make ones head spin, and though I can appreciate that some people actually do have some real knowledge about the stock market and what might be best for this company...... they overlook the most basic reason this company is floundering; they will not listen to the CORE, PASSIONATE, MUSIC & RADIO LOVING subscribers who don't like satellite radio.... they LOVE it! Or at least they (we) used to, before the demolition crew came in and took a wrecking ball to it.
It isn't that people won't pay for radio - they said people wouldn't pay for television, bottled water, etc. In this junk culture, media controlled society we live in, people will buy virtually anything as long as they perceive that the product has value, is cool, enhances their lives or is priced at a level where they just can't resist. People spend a small fortune buying crap in dollar stores, so I don't believe the argument "It's just too expensive." I stand corrected - the product doesn't even have to have any value; I took my aunt to a Christmas Tree Shop to return an item, and hordes of people were filling their carts with the most useless, vile crap I have ever seen in my life!
Mel and his cronies need to extricate their heads from their asses and start paying attention to the many thousands of subscribers who are begging them to restore quality and integrity to satellite radio. We didn't abandon AM/FM just for the priviledge of paying for the same Goddamn thing! Like you, I have given up promoting the service. I have lost my enthusiasm, and half the people have no idea that satellite radio even exists - an absolute disgrace and a sad commentary on how this company is managed. They have managed to destroy the only form of advertising they had - word of mouth - by beating the passion out of the most loyal of subscribers. The only word I can think of to describe this outfit is.... UNCONSCIONABLE !!!
Ryan, you must see the death of SDARS in the lack of any news, new products or even site traffic. This site used to be brimming with news/discussion and now nothing. The site has gotten better but the content is just not there.
SteveO:
I couldn't agree more but you,I & several others are basically in the choir.
The way I see it there are several options:
1. A coordinated subscription cancelation.
2. Creation of a real no-shit satellite TV/radio users group (there was an attempt several years ago to create a satellite TV subscribers group but the guy was a shyster and it never materialized) to collectively voice our disappointment and have real input. I've voted my displeasure at every stockholder's election but I don't have a bugzillion shares.
3. SiriusXM should split up programming. Have XM focus on music,comedy,and information worth a damn and let Sirius keep offering the schlock Mel and his minions appear to favor & have brief periods of commercials on their style of programming.
That's the only way I see SatRad surviving let alone prosper.
I have said this several times, and I don't wanna keep saying it, but this post of absolutely correct. This site used to have all the latest news, speculation, and discussion about all aspects of satellite radio. Now it's almost dead. Is there really nothing to report or talk about, or is it that the creator of this site has moved on in life, and doesn't devote the same effort to it. If that is the case, perhaps he should hand off the torch to another person, or hire someone who is interested in really reviving this site.
I really hope it does come back, but right now, it's not looking so good.
SDARS is over, there is no way to save the mess Melvin made.
Actually, they can't count those as subscriptions. A Sirius/XM tech supervisor who tracks those things told me that just because a car on a lot has a radio, that does not count. It's only actual subscriptions; they have to track and count every single radio that is getting a signal. SEC stuff, apparently.