Comments on: Sirius XM: Liberty outflanks Echostar for now

By: timfarrar

timfarrar — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:52:30 +0000

The recent interview with John Malone in the Denver Business Journal gave some more support to my view that bundling with DirecTV was not a driver for this deal: “This is not a DirecTV play. This is a Liberty play on Sirius. It may evolve into some involvement by DirecTV. It could mean some involvement by Charlie. Right at the moment, we just saw something we were interested in and decided we should get involved…Obviously we have a large stake in DirecTV, and how Sirius could play into that is an important consideration, but it�s not on the table today.”

The mention of possible collaboration with Charlie Ergen is particularly interesting “if Charlie has a great idea on how to exploit the asset, we may end up doing something with Charlie” – perhaps a two-way add-on for satellite radio may eventually emerge after all.

By: timfarrar

timfarrar — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:31:02 +0000

There have certainly been indications that there may be bundled offers of satellite radio with DirecTV subscriptions. However, is that really going to give DirecTV any competitive advantage over DISH? It seems very unlikely to make any difference to DirecTV’s proposition (who buys satellite TV based on audio content?) even if it helps Sirius XM somewhat. So long as satellite radio proves to be a sustainable business (which we believe is the case), Liberty will get a great financial return on its investment (and its already got a $30M “structuring fee”), even if Sirius XM ultimately doesn’t create value for its current equity holders.

By: mss_guy

mss_guy — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:57:55 +0000

Well the bundling speculation seems confirmed by this posting at engadget

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/02/27/sirius-directv-bundles-already-being-considered/

Sirius / DirecTV bundles already being considered
by Darren Murph, posted Feb 27th 2009 at 12:22PM

We posed the question barely a week ago, and already we’ve got our answer. Or, not really, but pretty much. You see, Liberty Media (DirecTV’s parent company) CEO Gregg Maffei told analysts on a recent conference call that “one could talk about or imagine bundles, probably the $80 [per month] DirecTV product offering free trials of the $11 [monthly] Sirius XM product more likely than the other way around.” He continued by stating that he hoped Sirius and DirecTV could “proceed on some of those in ways that are obviously beneficial for both parties.” Really, we feel that it’s just a matter of time. DirecTV has been grappling for ways to outgun DISH for years, and it’d be tough to fathom the satcaster having Sirius as a cousin and not exploiting it. Whether or not bundled sat ratio will be enough to make prospective customers choose it over other pay-TV alternatives remains to be seen, but really, what does DirecTV (or Sirius, for that matter) have to lose?

By: mss_guy

mss_guy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:50:09 +0000

I think it’s the millions of Sirius/XM subs that are the key to Liberty’s interest in the company. It’s not too far fetched to see them marketing DirecTV to this pool of subs and even coming up with “double-play” bundles of satellite TV at home and satellite radio on the road with bundle discounts.

And perhaps the broadband carrier deals with DirecTV could be extended to include Sirius-XM so that AT&T could offer wireline and wireless calling on it’s network, TV through DirecTV and sat-radio through Sirius-XM – all on one bill.