Recently in Satellite Radio Category

Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday that it will stop all of its North American factories for two full days next month.

At the same time, Nissan Motor Co. provided a dismal prediction of the auto industry's near-term future to the media. Predictions that, if they hold true, could affect the satellite radio industry more than previously expected.

Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, has already canceled all U.S. production of its light trucks for three months this summer. Production is to be further reduced in 2009 at three U.S. assembly plants, according to a spokesperson.

XM installs in Toyota vehicles was expected to reach one-million vehicles annually by 2010. There's no word whether this was a contractual obligation, or an estimate based on predicted production levels.

Toyota also did not disclose how many produced vehicles would be lost as a result of the two-day stoppage on December 22nd and 23rd (which is in addition to a scheduled break for Christmas and New Year).

Meanwhile...

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault SA, warned of his own bleak view of the auto industry's prospects in Washington with a reminder that Nissan was expecting virtually no profit in the October-March second half.

"We have to recognize 2009 will be one of the most challenging years for our industry and the whole economy in the last 50 years," Ghosn told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.

Ghosn told CNBC that U.S. industry-wide sales falling to 11-11.5 million vehicles next year was a "realistic" assessment. For comparison's sake, in 2007 auto sales totaled 16.15 million.

So what does that mean for the satellite radio industry? I think Sirius XM Radio Inc. CEO Mel Karmazin said it best during the Q3 earnings call:

"Unfortunately we do not have a whole lot of control over what cars are getting sold," said Karmazin to investors. "We do our best. We help our car partners any way we can, but we are not the ones that are selling cars.

"So we are at the mercy of what happens."

[via Reuters]

There's no doubt that things must be pretty hectic over at Sirius XM Radio Inc., but Wednesday's channel switchover was wrought with confusion and miscommunication, and I'm amazed the company even let this happen.

If I was management, I would be fuming right now. Heads would be rolling.

The fact is, a small percentage of the nearly 20 million subscribers read Orbitcast. But we were the only ones who knew the channel switchover was coming.

I received an email notification of the new Sirius XM channel lineup on the day of the switchover. But for a majority of subscribers, that was one day too late. Heck, it was one week too late.

Sure, there was some on-air discussion about the switchover, but that's assuming that everyone was listening. A mighty big assumption. Just like it's a big assumption that your subscribers will check their personal emails before jumping in the cars to go to work on Wednesday.

The result? Confusion.

Countless subscribers turned on the radio for the first time only to learn that their presets were messed up. Confused customers turned the dial only to find that the service they were used to (and paying for) is completely different now. Confusion leads to dissatisfaction - not exactly the end result the company was aiming for.

This is Satellite Radio. This isn't Internet Radio. The communications with the customer shouldn't be relegated to an email and a homepage update.

The least the company could have done was to send out a mailer a week ahead of time. A simple direct mail piece notifying that there will be a major restructuring of channels. It didn't need to be specific (though, that would be nice), but at least the channel changes wouldn't have been a surprise.
 
"But Ryan, budgets are tight, and a mailer to millions of subscribers costs money!"

True, but call center calls cost money too. Forrester Research estimates that a customer call for service to a call center costs an average of $5.50 per call. If one post gets 400+ comments on this subject, something tells me that there was a large increase in activity to the call centers as well. For every unhappy customer who calls, there's hundreds more who don't bother, but are equally unhappy.

The bottom line:
Sirius XM Radio have two revenue-generating "clients" - the subscriber, and the advertiser. If the company was going to do a major overhaul to the ad sales system, I'm sure they would have notified each and every advertiser well ahead of time. I'm sure every advertiser would be aware of a change occuring, even if they didn't know the full details.

The same logic - and respect - should apply to subscribers.

More personnel cuts are expected to occur today at XM, that's on top of the estimate one-hundred staffers that were cut last month, reports DCRTV.

Additionally, Radio-Info reports that some terminated employees are being asked to sign one-year long Non-Compete Agreements in order to receive a severance package. Since there isn't another satellite radio service provider to jump to (and I doubt they're worried about the now bankrupt WorldSpace), I'd assume this is meant to prevent an influx of talent to terrestrial radio.

To date, 22 percent of the combined Sirius XM Radio Inc. workforce have been eliminated, said CEO Mel Karmazin to investors earlier this week. There's no word, yet, as to exactly how many staffers are expected to be let go today.

[DCRTV]

The switch was finally thrown, and both sides of Sirius XM Radio Inc. now have a cross-pollinated music lineup.

So, what are your first impressions?

Now that XM subscribers have access to Sirius programming like Radio Margaritaville, The Grateful Dead Channel, and The Foxxhole; and Sirius subscribers have access to XM programming like Theme Time Radio Hour, Artist Confidential and Tom Petty's Buried Treasure (among many others) - what are you initial impressions?

Sound off in the comments.

Sirius XM Radio Inc. have released their third-quarter 2008 earnings results, showing that pro forma revenue increased 16% year over year, and total subscribers grew to more than 18.9 million (up 17% from last year).

Total operating costs, less those nasty merger related expenses, fell compared to last year, leading to a 64% improvement in the pro forma adjusted loss from operations of $37 million before restructuring costs.

Read the full press release after the jump...

The combined Sirius XM Radio Inc. channel lineup, scheduled to go live this Wednesday, was officially made public in a full-page spread in Friday's USA Today.

A scan of the USA Today full-page ad was uploaded by maxoct97 to XM Fan. I've color-corrected it and stitched it together into a single image (click on the image above to view the full-size version).

The channels listed still leave some holes to be uncovered - because they don't add up to the 69 commercial-free channels publicized - but this gives us a clear and official look into what channels will remain after the switchover.

Here's the lineup by category:

Pop:
40's on 4, 50's on 5, 60's on 6, 70's on 7, 80's on 8, Elvis Radio, Top 20 on 20;

Rock:
AC/DC Radio, Led Zepplin Radio, Hair Nation, 1st Wave, Alt Nation, Faction, Classic Vinyl, E Street Radio, Grateful Dead Radio, Radio Margaritaville, Underground Garage, The Coffee House,

Dance & Electronic:
BPM, Sirius XM Chill

Hip-Hop & R&B:
Shade 45, Hip Hop Nation, Soul Town

Jazz, Blues & Standards:
Real Jazz, Siriously Sinatra, BB King's Bluesville, Cinemagic, On Broadway

Country:
Outlaw Country, Bluegrass Junction, Willies Place

Latin & World:
The Joint

Christian:
Praise

Classical:
Met Opera

Play-by-Play Sports:
NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, PGA, Mad Dog Radio, Barclay's Premier League, NCAA, Indy Car, F1, NASCAR, Pac 10, Big 10, SEC, Big East, Big 12, ACC

Talk, News and Entertainment:
Fox News, CNN, CNBA, Bloomberg Radio, POTUS, XM Public Radio, NPR, Doctor radio, The Catholic Channel, Cosmo Radio, Sirius XM Book Radio, America Left, America Right, Raw Dog Comedy, Bubba The Love Sponge, Laugh USA, National Lampoon Comedy Radio, Laugh Attack, Radio Disney, Kids Place Line, Howard Stern, Blue Collar Comedy, Martha Stewart Living Radio, The Opie & Anthony Show, The Foxxhole produced by Kamie Foxx, Sirius XM Stars, Oprah & Friends

[via XMFan]
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Rumor has it that Directed Electronics and Sirius XM Radio Inc. will be parting ways next year, Orbitcast has learned.

DEI Holdings Inc. (formally Directed Electronics Inc.) will no longer be the satellite radio distribution source for Sirius, according to people familiar with the matter. The two companies are said to be splitting up once the contract runs out in January 2009, these people said.

An official announcement is expected to be made sometime in the near future, possibly as soon as today. To date, official sources have not confirmed this information.

UPDATE: The official press release was issued shortly after market close. Click the jump to read the full announcement...

Following audio from XM Escape, more audio has come in confirming the November 12th channel switchover.

Listen below:

The question remains whether Sirius XM Radio will let their subscribers know the exact channel lineup well before next week's launch date. Today is the day the new merged lineup was originally rumored to go public, so maybe we can expect to see some sort of official notification from the company today?

Thanks Alex!

Merger talks between General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC may intensify this week following last night's win by Barack Obama, according to reports.

Combining the companies would require $10 to $12 billion in additional cash to mesh operations, said Citigroup's Itay Michaeli said in a note to investors on October 20th. And Chrysler and GM don't expect to make significant progress on government aid until after the U.S. election, sources tell Bloomberg.

"A combination of these two companies could, in the long run, save them quite a bit of money," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Robert Schulz.

"However, it's going to take a lot of liquidity in the short run, and we don't see it as a panacea to their problems," added Schulz. "It certainly doesn't fix the economic outlook."

Government loan guarantees might help stabilize the companies, said President-elect Barack Obama in an interview last week on NBC's Nightly News With Brian Williams.

Obama said in the interview he would meet with the chiefs of GM, Chrysler, Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers union to develop a plan for an industry overhaul should he win the election.

With that now a reality, the GM-Chrysler merger could see a new ray of hope with the help of government loans. And a healthier auto industry, amid massive declines, would bode well for Sirius XM Radio Inc.

U.S. Auto Sales, lead by General Motors, took a nosedive last month resulting in the lowest levels in 17 years.