Satellite radio

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:53:26 +0000, Sid Schweiger <sid@wrko.com> said:

> the idea of paying for radio hasn't taken hold yet, and probably
> never will on a mass scale.

Um, 21.9 million subs in 2011 is about 10% of all households.  That's
a mass audience by any stretch of the imagination.  (Source: SEC
filings.)  That's comparable to Comcast and Netflix subscriber counts.
I think people are plenty accustomed to paying for entertainment.
They are reporting about a 2% quarterly churn rate, which is
surprisingly low, with $100 million in quarterly earnings on $800
million in revenue.  (Sorry, I don't have time to look up comparable
terrestrial broadcasters -- so many are now private that it's hard to
find a good comparison.  They claim CC's revenue is $672 million for
the same quarter.)

You can read the same presentation at
<http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/908937/000093041312003219/c69788_ex99-1.htm>.

The open question is: will John Malone get control of the company and
screw it up, as he is currently attempting to do.  See the 8-K at
<http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/908937/000119312512255230/d361603d8k.htm>
and Liberty's SC 13D/A at
<http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/908937/000110465912040811/a12-13362_1sc13da.htm>.

-GAWollman