Sirius Radio a la carte service plan

[smiller]

Anyone have any experience with the new Sirius a la carte service offering (and the Starmate 5 receiver, the only unit to support a la carte service right now so far as I know)? I didn't feel the previous XM service I had was a very good value since I never listened to 90% of the channels (no interest in Howard Stern/Martha Stewart/Oprah/NASCAR/MLB/etc., all I want is some music that isn't on my MP3 player and reliable access to news on the road), but now you can apparantly choose 50 channels of your own liking for $6.99/month which seems more like it, for my needs anyway.

 

Anyone subscribed to the a la carte plan yet? Is the Starmate 5 suitable for use on a bike?

 

[OoPEZoO]

I didn't know they had it.......Now that I do, I will check it out

[eddd]

Good idea. There are so many channels (5 that you mentioned) that I have no interest in what so ever.

 

[EffBee]

I called and beat up the XM/Sirius rep over the phone, and got nothing until I finally threatened to quit the service. Then he opened up with a very good offer. I pay half price for the service and get all the channels.

 

Perhaps that offer has morphed into the one you cite, as the service finds its price/value level in a market being flooded with iPods/mp3 and music/books-on-tape. At this point, I don't know how XM/Sirius is going to survive, but as long as it provides the service I want, at $77/yr it's a product I'll pay for.

[OoPEZoO]

I don't know how XM/Sirius is going to survive, but as long as it provides the service I want, at $77/yr it's a product I'll pay for.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself

[smiller]

Perhaps that offer has morphed into the one you cite, as the service finds its price/value level in a market being flooded with iPods/mp3 and music/books-on-tape.

My understanding is that the a la carte option was not Sirius/XM's choice but rather accepted as a condition for authorization to complete the recent merger. There was concern about elimination of competition and subsequent pricing increases and as a result there were some mandates imposed by regulatory authorities. Sirius/XM's objection to a la carte pricing was no doubt due to the potential hit in revenue per subscriber (they have very consistently sold a higher-priced business model to investors), but any such 'hit' assumes that subs who are willing to pay $6.99 would also be willing to pay $12.95 if they didn't have the lower-cost option, and I'm not sure that's true. If the a la carte plan brings in subscribers who would never have joined otherwise then in the end Sirius/XM may end up being glad they had their arm twisted.

[realshelby]

I recently dropped all 4 of my subscriptions, mainly because of the "music fee" imposed recently. Better be sure they are not going to tack on $1.49 to $1.99 or whatever to your base amount. No matter who forced the music fee on them I smell BS about the whole matter. I spoke by cancelling my subscriptions.

[smiller]

Better be sure they are not going to tack on $1.49 to $1.99 or whatever to your base amount.

No way to tell because as far as I can see you can't find this out until you're at the end of the sign-up process (presumably they mention it then, I'm not sure.) It's pretty bad if they don't mention mandatory additional fees in the advertised price... they may not have a choice in passing on the fee but they do have a choice in whether to be up-front about it or not.

[EffBee]

Sirius/XM's objection to a la carte pricing was no doubt due to the potential hit in revenue per subscriber (they have very consistently sold a higher-priced business model to investors), but any such 'hit' assumes that subs who are willing to pay $6.99 would also be willing to pay $12.95 if they didn't have the lower-cost option, and I'm not sure that's true. If the a la carte plan brings in subscribers who would never have joined otherwise then in the end Sirius/XM may end up being glad they had their arm twisted.

 

In my dealings with them, they wouldn't budge off of full price. However, the customer service rep on the other end asked me if I was threatening to discontinue the service, to which I said, No, that it wasn't that type of call. I was only looking for more reasonable pricing. Suddenly the light went on and I said Yes, I was going to discontinue. That's when I got the lower-price deal.

 

So, in looking at what you said about their assumption that someone willing to pay $6.99 would also be willing to pay $12.95, I'd say you were correct because they hold to the full price until you burst that assumption. Then they cave.

[smiller]

Yeah, they're put themselves a bit between a rock and a hard place with their magical $12.95 pricing model in that they're repeatedly promised investors that they won't go below that and subscribers that they won't go above, hence a lot of manipulation of just about everything but the base price (i.e. new fees for Internet radio access, extra subs, royalty fee, etc.) The question is whether the $12.95 price (now really $14.95 I guess due to the royalty fee) is sustainable as they try to attract a critical mass of subscribers. Obviously more experienced minds than ours are grappling with the problem, not sure where it's going to go but I think ultimately the price will have to come down. From your experience it sounds like they may have an unofficial policy to move in that direction to avoid churn. When I called to disconnect a couple of years ago they offered me a few months service free but wouldn't budge on price.

[RBertalotto]

Considering most investors got killed with this stock ($7.12 high to 5 cents low) currently at .63..............I don't think investors care what they do as long as they don't threaten file BK again.