Forum

In my blog today, I wrote that today’s news that Sirius XM is on the brink of default makes me very sad. I love my satellite radio, and would really miss it if company boss Mel Karmazin can’t find a buyer or is unable to dig his way out of debt.

There was time when all of the competitive hype between the original Sirius and XM competitors really got on my nerves. The two companies were downright rude to each other at CES shows, taking turns interrupting each others press conferences with obnoxious outbursts, etc. I thought they were both childish, and also thought the audio quality from their services was too low-grade to be worth the trouble.

Over the years, however, I have grown to appreciate not only my wide access to MLB baseball radio broadcasts and a lot of college football games, but I had begun to really enjoy listening to the classical stations during the day (my very own Muzak) and “decades” channels on the weekend.

I’ve never been a talk radio fan, so Howard Stern and the rest of the personalities don’t mean a thing to me. I do realize their importance to helping increase satellite radio’s subscriber list, but I can’t help but wonder if that sort of money drain was really worth it in the end.

There aren’t a lot of people who are optimistic about the potential survivability of Sirius XM, given the dire state of the economy, the company’s immense debt, and the lack of credit available from banks. I’m no financial expert, but I always wondered how long a company could survive on borrowed money, like Sirius and XM have done.

Now it looks like Sirius XM is living on borrowed time as well.  

My question for everyone is this: do you think satellite radio is toast and if it is will you miss it as much as I will?