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At least they aren't wasting a half billion dollars on that juvenile jerk Howard Stern.

If the contract that Stern inked with Sirius is even close to being accurate, can someone explain to me how they can possibly turn a profit even in the long run?

They are counting on the millions of stern fans to get sirius. I have sirus (2 sets) I like it. I listen to Mike Church, Jerry Doyle, Laura Ingrham, Tammy Bruce etc... They have more sports than XM... I like sirius so far...

If the contract that Stern inked with Sirius is even close to being accurate, can someone explain to me how they can possibly turn a profit even in the long run?

Stern was given $500M....a typical sat subscriber is thought to be worth about $500 total to the company....if Stern brings in 1M new subs, then his contract is paid for.

I'm sure that he has brought in 1M new subs (and SIRI must be as well, as they gave him the stock bonus). All in all, not that bad of a deal for SIRI (if, that is, they can keep from going BK).

If the contract that Stern inked with Sirius is even close to being accurate, can someone explain to me how they can possibly turn a profit even in the long run?

Simple math. To date, the number of Sirius subscribers directly attributed to Stern number above 600,000. At $13 per month, that translates to about $100 million per year, or $500 million over the five year term of the deal. In short, Stern paid for himself, Sirius got a lot of attention and far more than 600,000 subscriber adds. It was a smart business move.

In contrast, XM's growth has flattened out. XM had a year advantage over Sirius on the exponential growth curve, which explained the difference in audience size until about six months ago. Since that time Sirius has been growing faster than XM. Coupled with a more cost efficient delivery system, and Sirius should be profitable sooner.

And yes, for the record I'm a Sirius subscriber (lifer) and yes I'm annoyed at the loss of Fox News -- especially yesterday with Dick Cheney's interview. Will be interesting to see if Sirius and Fox are able to work things out.

If the contract that Stern inked with Sirius is even close to being accurate, can someone explain to me how they can possibly turn a profit even in the long run?

Siris was way behind XM and losing ground before they hired Stern. Stern helped turned Sirius around and now is surpassing XM in subscriber growth. Sirius was headed towards penny stockland without Stern. It takes about an extra 650K subs pay for Howard's contract. Has Howard alone counted towards 650K extra subs? Probably not quite, but he has made Sirius a serious competitor.