Deal Journal - WSJ.com : The Future of Sirius XM: Playboy Channel and the Pope Page 1 of 10 More News, Quotes, Companies, Video SEARCH Logout Welcome, Dale Collins My Account My Online Journal Help Today's Paper Video Columns Blogs Graphics Newsletters & Alerts New! Journal Community HOME U.S. WORLD BUSINESS MARKETS TECH PERSONAL FINANCE LIFE & STYLE OPINION CAREERS REAL ESTATE SMALL BUSINESS QUICK LINKS : OBAMA'S TRANSITION MADOFF BLAGOJEVICH HOLIDAY SALES 2008 IN PHOTOS HEARD ON THE STREET MARKET DATA HEALTH 2008 REVIEW DEAL JOURNAL Blog Search: An up-to-the-minute take on deals and deal makers. < Today in Lehman Poaching: Nomura Bats .8[...] -- Previous | SEE ALL POSTS FROM THIS BLOG | Next -- Outsourcing in the U.K.: Meet the Govern[...] > October 14, 2008, 11:38 am Visit WSJ.com's Deals Page The Future of Sirius XM: Playboy Channel and the Pope RECENT POSTS Posted by Heidi N. Moore Winners & Losers From the Week That Was Jan 2, 2009 You can understand if investors in Sirius XM Radio are in despair. After all the company’s Deal Maker Profile: New IndyMac CEO Steve Mnuchin shares look more like a penny stock than the shares of the second-largest U.S. audio Jan 2, 2009 company–created by the combination this year of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Dow Chemical's Tale of Woe Radio Holdings. Shares were trading at 54 cents in midmorning trading–and that was a 6% Jan 2, 2009 boost from Monday’s close. Afternoon Reading: Rethinking LTCM Jan 2, 2009 For CEO Mel Karmazin ( left ), that advertisement means it is time to sell, sell, sell–not the shares, but the company’s prospects. At the Dow Jones Media and Money conference this morning, Karmazin talked up Sirius XM’s future as a content company. And what kind of content? In a classic Karmazinian juxtaposition, the CEO crowed, “We have 24- hour-a-day Playboy Radio, we have a 24-hour-7-day-a-week Catholic Associated Press Diocese channel…” Interesting synergies that. Mel Karmazin, Sirius XM Radio CEO, at a news conference in New York Tuesday Aug. 19, 2008. The rest of Karmazin’s time on stage was spent on the hard sell. With analysts questioning Sirius’s ability to meet revenue ABOUT THIS BLOG forecasts and the company having agreed to offer a la carte pricing as a condition of the merger, Karmazin made his case for the full-subscription model (currently $12.95 a month at Sirius XM, with a la cart options starting at $6.99 a month), saying a full subscription was a Deal Journal is an up-to-the-minute take on the deals way of guaranteeing options. “We consider ourselves a content company,” he said, reminding and deal makers that shape the landscape of Wall the attendees of the power of Sirius-only broadcasters like Howard Stern. “People can listen Street, including mergers and acquisitions, capital- to commercials on radio, or pay us 43 cents a day.” raising, private equity and bankruptcy. Deal Journal is updated throughout each trading day with exclusive commentary, analysis, data, news flashes and profiles.The Wall Street Karmazin acknowledged analysts’ skepticism about Sirius XM obliquely, by mentioning, Journal's Heidi N. Moore is the lead writer, with contributions near the end of his interview, how the company needed to increase its free cash flow. from other Journal reporters. Send news items, comments and questions to [email protected]. But he saved much of his ire for competitors such as HD radio and Clear Channel Communications’ mammoth terrestrial radio network. In Washington, there has been talk of requiring car makers to install HD radio gear as an alternative to Sirius XM. Karmazin scoffed at the idea, which he said would drive up car prices. Karmazin’s sales job was lost on no one. Wrapping up the interview, his interviewer concluded, “Well. You’ve made your pitch.” That pitch might have been better served for the credit markets. That is because the company The First Annual Meanie Awards has $1.1 billion in debt to be refinanced next year, and Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen wrote on Sept. 29 that the real fear around Sirius is that it won’t get the three debt For a few cheap laughs, Mean Street has put together its first deals done. “Investors are currently pricing substantial risk that SIRI will be unable to ever Meanie Awards to recognize extraordinary achievement refinance ‘09 maturities, potentially forcing a restructuring,” she wrote. in an extraordinary year. ( Read more ) “I wish the debt market wasn’t what it was,” Karmazin said today. “It’s very challenging, but Previous Columns: we’ve been talking to our debt holders and I’m confident we’ll be able to work something out.” The Chutzpah of Goldman Sachs http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/10/14/the -future -of -sirius -xm -playboy -and -the -pope/ 1/4/2009 Deal Journal - WSJ.com : The Future of Sirius XM: Playboy Channel and the Pope Page 2 of 10 Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/10/14/the-future-of-sirius-xm- Why the Bernie Madoff Scandal Is a Good Thing playboy-and-the-pope/trackback/ Save & Share: Share on Facebook | Del.icio.us | Digg this | Email This | Print E-MAIL SIGN -UP Read more: Sirius -XM , The Players A big deal breaks. Be the first to know with our new Deals Comments email alerts. Plus, get a daily roundup of Deal Journal blog Report offensive comments to [email protected] posts and deal news. Check the boxes below to subscribe. Deals Alert in case you hadn’t seen. ray Deal Journal Comment by [email protected] - October 14, 2008 at 11:51 am Save Settings To view all or change any of your e-mail settings, click to the Get some braces MEl E-Mail Setup Center Comment by Anonymous - October 14, 2008 at 12:28 pm This stock has been te most bashed stock ever. Motley Fool comes out daily with MOST POPULAR POSTS sometrumped up news, the a.P. writes anything that is negative, and ever hedge fund and brockerage firm analylist is bashing the stock. why I want to know are so many people 1. Ignoring the Oracles: You Are With the Free Markets, or interested in seeing the stock fail. There is an on going effort to keep the stock price down. I Against Them want to see someone go to jail for stock manipulation, which is supposed to be illegal. 2. Bush Asserts Israel's Right to Defense 3. Year in Photos - The Wall Street Journal Online Comment by pat - October 14, 2008 at 1:25 pm 4. Dow Chemical's Tale of Woe I got stuck with a little unhedged XMSR stock and obviously didn’t realize how vulnerable 5. Choosing A Name: Bristol Palin's Son Tripp that failure to hedge was to the debt restructuring situation of the combined company. 6. Bank of America: What to Expect When You're Expecting Merrill Lynch Mel’s right about the full subscription model. I just did an experiment. 7. Dow Chemical's Break -Up Fee as Down Payment? I happen to be a SIRI subscriber. In my home; in my car. I’m just the kind of guy SIRI needs. 8. Real Time Economics But my @home SIRI radio was on the blink, and being pissed about my stock situation I was 9. Deal Maker Profile: New IndyMac CEO Steve Mnuchin going to cancel. 10. The Best Sportswriting of 2008 First a SIRI tech probably spent 30 minutes with me to determine the technical problem. The technical problem (which is intermittant) is that my radio is busting. My unit is 24 mo old and not under warranty. I would have preferred (as a shareholder) that that problem was diagnosed in ten minutes. Recent Comments So then I went to a customer service guy. My goal was to get a free replacement and is it legal to.. on Is It Illegal to Pay Out Wall Street downgrade to the new $6.99 service that gave me the 10 (I ONLY USE IT FOR TEN) Bonuses In Junk Bonds? stations I use. That deal couldn’t get done. And the experience offered an interesting view Bonehead on Dow Chemical's Tale of Woe into why Mel is right. TheDog on Casting the Lehman Brothers Movie z a c a r i e l on Was Microsoft -Yahoo a Victim of Bad Radios that are enabled to get the new cheaper service are priced substantially higher than Timing? full service radios. (It’s a quick payback–like 14 mo, but after the warranty period). And even z a c ariel on Was Microsoft -Yahoo a Victim of Bad though I only wanted like ten stations out of the fifty I could have gotten (like 5 news stations Timing? and 5 music stations–no Howard; no ESPN; no Martha, no Mad Dog), I couldn’t get them without paying an extra $1/mo. Top Deals Stories And when the service rep offered a credit against the cost of a new radio (one that was much Rothschild Deadline Extended larger proportionally to the cheaper full service radio than to more expensive radio that enabled me to select SIRI-basic, I was incentivised to stay with the full service plan. So I High -Profile Investors to Buy IndyMac ordered a new radio at a net cost of $20 that is not switchable to the cheaper basic service. I got it overnight. Much better than VZ on ordering a DSL modem.