Having been a Sirius subscriber, and having had to put up with
short-cycle replays, very old programs, and incompetent customer
service, I found it no surprise when I cancelled my subscription upon
expiration (they automatically re-bill and you have to actively cancel)
it was tremendously difficult. After spending 3 months trying to get the
unauthorized payment back from Sirius, and spending 47 minutes
(measured) on the phone on hold the last contact, I filed a complaint
with the credit card company. Imagine my lack of surprise when the CC
company rep immediately refunded the money and commented that "this
happens a lot with this company".

I then started asking other folks I knew with Sirius only to find that
most are converting to XM even though we have to buy new equipment.

Looking at it from a purely economic point of view, the direct costs of
adding subscribers will decrease as the subscriber count rises. Since
all accounting and most customer service functions are automated, until
the process scales beyond system capacity each new subscriber represents
almost no new cost.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Goodish ]
Posted At: Sunday, March 19, 2006 3:31 PM
Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
Conversation: XM financial trouble
Subject: XM financial trouble

In article xDgTf.118102$QW2.27122@dukeread08,
"Jim Macklin" wrote:
XM radio, like magazine publishing depends more on
advertising revenue than subscription customers. But
advertising rates will vary with the number of subscribers
who are feed the ads.


Most of XM's music channels are "ad free." It is my suspicion that
this
will not be a sustainable business model for them (nor Sirius) long
term.



JKG