[IP] Re: more on Thoughts on XM, Sirius, and playing by the rules

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Hinden <bob.hinden@nokia.com>
Date: February 21, 2007 2:24:13 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>, "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Cc: Bob Hinden <bob.hinden@nokia.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Thoughts on XM, Sirius, and playing by the  
rules
Reply-To: bob.hinden@nokia.com

I think the basic problem with XM and Sirius satellite radio is that  
it can't money. I don't think there are enough people who are are  
willing to buy new radios and pay a monthly subscription.  There are  
too many alternative sources for content.    I don't think that  
merging the two will make the economics much better.

Combining two poor businesses won't make one good one.  To improve  
the economics they will have to move the customer base of one to  
another and that's going to be very hard without giving away new  
equipment and service.

I think this shows that there is a limit to how much people are  
willing to pay per month for content services.  We have fixed phone,  
mobile phone, cable/satellite TV, tivo, netflix, satellite radio,  
itunes, etc.  Most people are not going to get all of these.

Bob





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