Satellite Radio Growth to Slow?
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 4:25 PM
Tags: 2, XM
That's what the latest report from Targetbase (via Billboard Radio Monitor) is seeming to imply. The report projects that the total number of satellite radio subscribers will reach a meager 19.5 million between both XM and SIRIUS by 2010. That puts the estimate well below PriceWaterhouseCooper's estimates of 30 million by 2010.
Targetbase indicates that about 83% of US households don't intend on subscribing to satellite radio by 2010. With 13% going to XM and 19% going to SIRIUS, of those who actually are interested in satellite.
A real interesting aspect about this study is the level of brand confusion between the two service (all the more support for my rant the other day). Of those who are planning to subscribe to satellite radio, many say they will choose a service other than Sirius or XM (good luck with that). Also a larger percentage of Sirius users named Major League Baseball as an attraction of satellite radio... even though it's only available on XM.
We still have a lot of work ahead of us.
[via Billboard Radio Monitor]
[More details from the report on Media Buyer Planner]
Thanks Rich!
Digg It!
Featured Entries
From the Forums...
Search Orbitcast:
Latest Poll
Satellite Radio Websites
Sponsored Links
Comments
ok .... bullshit plain and simple
Posted by: tim wallick | July 12, 2006 4:45 PM
"We have alot of work to do." What does that mean? I mean, I guess it depends which company you are talking about. The fact that people would say "Sirius" and think MLB is on Sirius tells you what an incredible job Sirius has done with brand recognition. MLB is probably one of the biggest reasons to subscribe to sat. radio. The fact that XM hasn't made everyone realize it's exclusive to XM tells ALOT about how well each respective company has handled marketing. Sirius may not "have alot of work to do" at all. They seem to have done quite a job with name recognition.
Posted by: rjr | July 12, 2006 10:27 PM
Quote rjr - ""We have alot of work to do." What does that mean? I mean, I guess it depends which company you are talking about. The fact that people would say "Sirius" and think MLB is on Sirius tells you what an incredible job Sirius has done with brand recognition. MLB is probably one of the biggest reasons to subscribe to sat. radio. The fact that XM hasn't made everyone realize it's exclusive to XM tells ALOT about how well each respective company has handled marketing. Sirius may not "have alot of work to do" at all. They seem to have done quite a job with name recognition."
Holy crap man(to keep it PG). The INDUSTRY is what he's referring to! If people on Sirius think they can get MLB will be mad when they figure out that they don't get it. It's up to Sirius to keep their customers happy and if someone wants MLB and they can't have it, then what do you think they will do?
Having XM ads in EVERY stadium and having tv ads during games(in and out of the stadium) isn't enough to refresh peoples memories?? It should be but for some stupid reason people don't research before buying. XM will have alot of people signing up to get Nascar next year and they will find that it's not there.....even though XM, by then, would of removed Nascar from everything.
It's hard to sell a service and keep the customers attentive to whats on at the same time. Tells you alot about the American people don't it?
Good find Ryan!
Posted by: ahigee ? | July 13, 2006 8:27 AM
i agree with you ahigee,
a friend of mine had xm for 8 months when he saw o&a on my display he asked "when did xm pick them up?"i said "14 months ago!" people are idiots! most of them don't know whats on their own service. i wonder if theres so much info out there that people get lost or if their just lazy.
Posted by: bloody cape | July 13, 2006 9:11 AM
I think XM is taking the right approach in the long run - Getting more subscribers is nice, but gains you nothing if it _costs_ money to add and maintain each subscriber. The same kind of "subscriber number" math was being calculated towards the end of the Dialup Era, which ended disasterously after every Dialup company in the country concentrated solely on increasing subscribers - regardless of the cost to do so. (Of course, the rise of a competing technology didn't help matters.)
Satellite is certainly a brilliant new technology, but neither XM nor Sirius should use that as an excuse to ignore the age-old business rules that we all must follow (i.e., eventually income *must* exceed expenses). Hopefully, if both companies begin to follow sound business practices, rather than hemorrhaging cash, Satellite will be around as "The New Radio" for a long future...
May sounder minds prevail.
Posted by: The Flying Toaster | July 13, 2006 11:14 AM
19.5million by 2010 is just a population test which doesn't amount to anything these days. You can't base the opinions of 290million people on a survey of 30-50thousand.
XM should reach 8 million by year end and Sirius will probably beat 6.2 million. So Targetbase suggests XM and Sirius will SPLIT 1.8 million net subs per year. I could believe that if this was based on retail alone. If you asked everyone on that survery if they planned on buying a new car by 2010 we could have had a more realistic outcome.
Posted by: Joe Blow | July 13, 2006 11:44 AM
You missed my point. What I read was that when people were asked about a sat. radio company, they were responding "Sirius." Then, when asked why, they responded "baseball" I'm sure, among other reasons. My point was that it says alot about name recognition for Sirius. I'm certain before these people actually purchase a sat. radio company they would learn the difference.
As for "Ryan" it seemed to me his comments were a bit pro-XM, which is fine, I own both services...
Posted by: rjr | July 13, 2006 12:00 PM