If you listen to satellite radio, get ready to pay a bit more for it.
Sirus/XM will raise their basic subscription rate from $12.95 to $14.49 per month, Sirius said Wednesday. That is the first price increase since the company began offering content in 2002.
Sirius said earlier this year that it would raise prices for basic service, but it didn’t say by how much. To get approval from federal regulators for its 2008 merger with XM Satellite Radio, it agreed not to raise prices for three years.
The company has raised prices on premium packages in the intervening years and said that it will “adjust” prices on many packages on Jan. 1.
“This is the first price increase on our basic service packages since the addition of the NFL, NASCAR, Howard Stern, Martha Stewart and many college sports to our programming line-up,” CEO Mel Karmazin said in a statement.
Sirius had 21 million subscribers among all its services at the end of June. They pay an average of just over $11 per month, since many of them get free service for a limited time when they buy a car equipped with a satellite radio.
Helped by the price increase, Sirius XM now expects next year’s revenue to grow 10% from this year to $3.3 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet are expecting $3.39 billion.
This means my lifetime subscription will pay for itself even sooner!
This will just make it that much easier to say “go away” the next time they call again to try to get me to reactivate.
Won’t work. They’re like Zombie hordes. They just keep coming back no matter how many times you make them go away. I had it for a couple of years and just couldn’t see spending that much money for what I can get over the Air for free on AM/FM radio.
AM/FM is crap. I can travel and listen to the same channels no matter where I am. I don’t get 40 minutes of commercials repeated over and over again. I can find my sports info quickly and listen to it when they are playing. I am going on 6+ years and i absolutely love it.
I actually don’t mind spending money so I don’t get all the stuff I got on AM/FM radio-seemingly endless ads and morning talk shows that mean I don’t get to hear any music. Plus the ability to listen to the same stations anywhere in the country is a huge bonus. I can drive for 500 miles and never worry about trying to find a new FM station every 30 miles.
I never have to deal with static or fading signal levels and I have access to things I could never get over-the-air.
I agree that $12.95/month was too much which was why I signed up for a life-time on the car receiver. After 2.5 years it’s already paid for itself and each month from now on makes it even cheaper especially with this price hike.
To each his own.
Given that I’m currently paying for five radios this will be more than just a small financial impact on me.
I live in an area where there about three or four FM radio stations I can get decent reception and they all pretty much SUCK, music format not considered. So I will stick with Sirius despite the cost. Besides my current price per month is locked in for the next year.