News and musings on Sirius, XM, DirecTV and the DISH Network.

The best things on air aren’t free

It’s a common refrain, one that XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio have heard too many times to count: No one will pay for what they already can hear for free.

So what happens if you can’t get it for free anymore?

Numerous announcements during the past year by XM and Sirius are testing that theory. Singing a different refrain — “content is king” — the companies have sought to lure customers by emphasizing what traditional radio doesn’t have.

Sirius, for example, last week signed a four-year deal to devote a 24-hour radio channel to Martha Stewart, whose syndicated 90-second radio spots on traditional radio were dropped during her legal problems. Next January, traditional radio won’t have Howard Stern. Sirius will. Similarly, XM plucked shock jocks Gregg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony Cumia last August, two years after the duo were kicked off WNEW/102.7 FM.

“We hear that often: ‘Well, I’m not going to pay for something I can get for free.’ You can’t get this for free,” said Jim Collins, a spokesman for Manhattan-based Sirius, which in November named former Viacom head Mel Karmazin as its chief executive. “It’s really trying to make a comparison between apples and oranges. You cannot find this anywhere else. This is why we believe people will pay and are paying a subscription fee to get this kind of content. It’s that compelling.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 26th, 2005 at 1:53 pm and is filed under General, Satellite Radio, Sirius, XM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.