Didn't read but the answer is no. The only thing that could get Howard fired is if he murdered Greenstein and even still I'm not sure that would do it. They based their entire company's business plan around him, so truth be told, he's infallible right now. He tried to sue the company and they not only kept him and his ridiculous contract, they threw him a seven figure birthday party. You really think Opie and Anthony would still be at SiriusXM if the show if they tried to sue the company?
That might work well behind closed doors at Sirius, but the longterm mutual funds that own the majority of the company are going to need a more public guarantee than that to stick around through that kind of potential volatility.
True, but I was making the point that institutional investors are now going to be less inclined to stick around with Sirius stock since Howard's future with the company isn't nearly as concrete as it was before the Ant firing. Personally, I think most investors are just holding out for another pumped up buyout offer from Liberty/Google/Apple and praying that short interest dies back down with some solid growth numbers later this month (which might possibly be impacted by the sub cancellations this week).
Ah, I see what you were saying. Yeah, I think that they're essentially just expanding the platform through their deals with automakers so that eventually the value of the company will be stem from its widespread and accessible platform by one of the companies that you mentioned or someone else that finds that consumer accessibility attractive. They're not really much of a media company, even though that was the original vision, and I don't think that's where they see the end game.
They're actually getting reamed in the ass with their GM manufacturing deal, and lose money for each radio installed at the factory (not to mention having to put up with GM's recall horseshit lately). Subscriber growth has mainly been coming through OEM radio purchases, which seems strange because going through the hassle of installing and registering a radio unit vs. just streaming using one of the dozens of apps out there through a phone doesn't quite seem worth it.
The real deathblow to Sirius will come when Google or Apple partners with the big carriers to usher in an age of truly unlimited 4G music streaming, thus completely nullifying the last bit of advantage satellite radio has over streaming.
I don't see them completely dying with the number of units out there, just like terrestrial hasn't died. At worst, they'll either become an advertising-based alternative to terrestrial or be some sort of low-cost $2.99 a month service that has low-cost talent. There will probably never be another O&A or Stern ever again - there are too many options, and too many platforms now to pay people like that. I don't see anyone ever commanding the kind of value that they had.
Would they have fired Stern immediately? No, they would think long and hard about it and start crunching numbers. But with the amount of money they pay him, and the amount of news that he would have generated versus what Ant generated, he would become a pretty fucking expensive liability for the company. Stern would potentially get Donald Sterling-type media coverage. The stock would nosedive just from the controversy itself.
That doesn't even consider that some investors and analysts already think that Stern is overpaid and that the company has a bad deal with him already. He may be worth hundreds of millions to them, but he's not worth an infinite amount of money to them. He did take a paycut when he re-signed last time, so they do have a value in their minds of what he's worth.
10 comments
3 CowsAreCurious 2014-07-07
Didn't read but the answer is no. The only thing that could get Howard fired is if he murdered Greenstein and even still I'm not sure that would do it. They based their entire company's business plan around him, so truth be told, he's infallible right now. He tried to sue the company and they not only kept him and his ridiculous contract, they threw him a seven figure birthday party. You really think Opie and Anthony would still be at SiriusXM if the show if they tried to sue the company?
1 PCchongor 2014-07-07
That might work well behind closed doors at Sirius, but the longterm mutual funds that own the majority of the company are going to need a more public guarantee than that to stick around through that kind of potential volatility.
2 [deleted] 2014-07-07
If institutional investors were going to dump the stock, Howard would be gone. It's not even a question.
2 PCchongor 2014-07-07
True, but I was making the point that institutional investors are now going to be less inclined to stick around with Sirius stock since Howard's future with the company isn't nearly as concrete as it was before the Ant firing. Personally, I think most investors are just holding out for another pumped up buyout offer from Liberty/Google/Apple and praying that short interest dies back down with some solid growth numbers later this month (which might possibly be impacted by the sub cancellations this week).
1 [deleted] 2014-07-07
Ah, I see what you were saying. Yeah, I think that they're essentially just expanding the platform through their deals with automakers so that eventually the value of the company will be stem from its widespread and accessible platform by one of the companies that you mentioned or someone else that finds that consumer accessibility attractive. They're not really much of a media company, even though that was the original vision, and I don't think that's where they see the end game.
1 PCchongor 2014-07-07
They're actually getting reamed in the ass with their GM manufacturing deal, and lose money for each radio installed at the factory (not to mention having to put up with GM's recall horseshit lately). Subscriber growth has mainly been coming through OEM radio purchases, which seems strange because going through the hassle of installing and registering a radio unit vs. just streaming using one of the dozens of apps out there through a phone doesn't quite seem worth it.
The real deathblow to Sirius will come when Google or Apple partners with the big carriers to usher in an age of truly unlimited 4G music streaming, thus completely nullifying the last bit of advantage satellite radio has over streaming.
1 [deleted] 2014-07-07
I don't see them completely dying with the number of units out there, just like terrestrial hasn't died. At worst, they'll either become an advertising-based alternative to terrestrial or be some sort of low-cost $2.99 a month service that has low-cost talent. There will probably never be another O&A or Stern ever again - there are too many options, and too many platforms now to pay people like that. I don't see anyone ever commanding the kind of value that they had.
1 [deleted] 2014-07-07
Would they have fired Stern immediately? No, they would think long and hard about it and start crunching numbers. But with the amount of money they pay him, and the amount of news that he would have generated versus what Ant generated, he would become a pretty fucking expensive liability for the company. Stern would potentially get Donald Sterling-type media coverage. The stock would nosedive just from the controversy itself.
That doesn't even consider that some investors and analysts already think that Stern is overpaid and that the company has a bad deal with him already. He may be worth hundreds of millions to them, but he's not worth an infinite amount of money to them. He did take a paycut when he re-signed last time, so they do have a value in their minds of what he's worth.
1 [deleted] 2014-07-07
[deleted]
1 [deleted] 2014-07-07
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1 sukotsuto 2014-07-07
They will never fire Hoo Hoo. The company rises and falls with RADIO EDIT.
0 olemisscub 2014-07-07
That article told me (and anyone else who reads it) absolutely nothing. What a useless article.