siriusxm
SiriusXM reported a 4% decline in revenue and a nearly $3 billion net loss last quarter after it completed a financial maneuver that was aimed at simplifying its publicly traded stock, the company reported on Thursday.
The $2.96 billion quarterly net loss stemmed from a $3.36 billion non-cash impairment charge, a type of accounting expense the means an asset’s value on the company’s balance sheet was written down. When SiriusXM merged with Liberty Media’s tracking stock in September, Liberty Media valued the company’s goodwill based on a sustained lower stock price.
The charge does not impact on SiriusXM’s cash flow. However, lower subscriber revenue and softer-than-projected advertising revenue in the second half of this year caused the company to trim its 2024 revenue goal to $8.675 billion from $8.75 billion targeted earlier in the year.
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SiriusXM’s stock price was down 3.27% at $26.50 as of 11:20 a.m. in New York.
The company reported total third quarter revenue fell 4% to $2.17 billion, and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and assets (EBITDA) fell 7% to $693 million, representing a 32% margin, compared to the year-ago quarter.
Tom Barry, SiriusXM’s chief financial officer, described seeing green shoots from the company’s investments in its subscription business and content, including 14,000 more net self-pay subscribers and a 6% increase in podcast advertising revenue.
“We are focused on executing our long-term strategy of strengthening our subscription business, enhancing our advertising offerings, and optimizing costs as we reinvest in the business,” Barry said in a statement.
The growth in self-pay subscribers due to lower churn reversed the contraction the company saw in the third quarter last year when it lost 96,000 subscribers. SiriusXM’s average revenue per user fell $0.53 to $15.16 due to a “higher proportion of subscribers on self-pay promotional and streaming-only plans,” the company said.
Known for its in-car satellite radio subscriptions, SiriusXM launched a new in-car subscription priced at $9.99 for just SiriusXM’s music channels. The company reported seeing podcast and on-demand listeners increasing on the app it rolled out last year.
The company invests heavily in its content. In the third quarter, SiriusXM signed an exclusive deal with “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper and launched shows with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Gen Z political commentator Dylan Douglas, and the beloved former football coaches Jimbo Fisher and Bill Belichick.
Revenue from the company’s Pandora and off-platform business segment slipped 1% to $544 million as Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium’s self-pay subscriber-based declined by 76,000 to 5.9 million. The company said the decline stemmed from fewer trial starts and churn after the price of certain plans was hiked.
When Coldplay tours, the British rockers typically play to tens of thousands of fans per show – in fact, as of Aug. 2024, their Music of the Spheres World Tour became the biggest rock tour of all time, according to Billboard Boxscore.
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So when Chris Martin & Co. hit the stage at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg – a 650-person capacity venue — on Monday (Oct. 7) afternoon for a SiriusXM Presents show in support of new album Moon Music, the crowd was freaking out more than a little bit. Which might explain why one attendee, toward the end of the concert, shouted out a request for a nonexistent Coldplay song.
The saga began when Coldplay gave fan-favorite Music of the Spheres track “Coloratura” a rare performance, explaining that people online had been clamoring to hear it live. After that, fans began shouting out song titles, with one guy yelling, “Fix It.” Presumably, the man was thinking of the Billboard Hot 100 hit “Fix You” from 2005’s X&Y, but Chris Martin wasn’t letting him off that easy.
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“’Fix It’ is another song from another band, my brother,” Martin said, shaking his head before leading the band through “Yellow.” But after wrapping up their breakthrough hit (“Yellow” was their first Hot 100 entry back in 2001), Martin seemingly decided that perhaps “Fix It” should be a Coldplay song after all. Apologizing to the fan for getting a bit “cross” with him, Martin sat down at the piano and freestyled an impromptu tune on the spot, dedicating it to the dude.
“Here is a song called ‘Fix It,’ specifically just for that guy / It’s okay if you come to a concert to call out of the name of a song,” Martin sang, chuckling good-naturedly. “[But] I’d much prefer you don’t get the name of the song wrong / Oh, fix it, let’s fix it / It was broken a long time ago / Yes, fix it, a famous song called ‘Fix It’ / That before today even I didn’t know.”
One can only imagine what it was like to be that man in that moment. In less than 10 minutes, he mangled a Coldplay song title in front of the band, got gently mocked by Martin, received an onstage apology and then had a brand-new song dedicated to him – one that will probably never be performed again. Iconic.
That unscripted moment gives a good sense of the vibe throughout Coldplay’s underplay, which was broadcast on SiriusXM later that same day. Thanks to the intimate space and a respectful but enthusiastic audience, Martin seemed warm and congenial, pointing at specific people in the crowd and sticking his tongue out for fans’ cameras. He even joked about the band going the Taylor Swift route with its back catalog. “We released Parachutes (Taylor’s Version), it’s going to do very well,” he quipped while speaking about their new LP, Moon Music.
Of the new Moon Music tracks, the live highlights were undoubtedly “The Karate Kid,” a gorgeous piano ballad that saw its first-ever live performance during the SiriusXM show, and “Good Feelings,” which brought collaborator Ayra Starr onstage and saw The Weirdos — Coldplay’s puppet alien rock band — pop up on the venue’s balcony. Much like their recent Saturday Night Live performance, Coldplay brought of Elyanna & TINI for an emphatic “We Pray,” too.
As for the anthemic sing-alongs, “Viva La Vida” and “Sky Full of Stars” enjoyed wild responses from the crowd, while a live run-through of “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face” from 2002’s classic LP A Rush of Blood to the Head proved that Coldplay can still kick ass as rock n’ roll band.
Although the mood of the show was light, joyous and celebratory (confetti blasted the audience more than once), Martin did take a moment to acknowledge that the concert took place on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel and the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
“Today, on October 7, we send peace to the Middle East,” Martin said prior to “Coloratura.” The juxtaposition was perhaps intentional, given the opening lyrics: “We fell in through the clouds / And everyone before us is there welcoming us now / It’s the end of death and doubt.”
BMI is taking SiriusXM to court after the two sides failed to reach a deal on royalty rates during more than two years of negotiations, arguing that the satcaster is “no longer a startup” and must pay more to songwriters.
In a petition filed in court today, BMI asked a Manhattan federal judge to uphold a higher royalty rate it has asked SiriusXM to pay – citing increased revenue for the radio giant and a shift toward more lucrative digital streaming.
“SiriusXM’s financial performance, and its expansion of its digital offerings, make clear it is no longer a startup in a nascent industry,” lawyers for the rights group wrote. “Yet, despite achieving its secure and successful position, Sirius has continued to pay songwriters — who create the music essential to SiriusXM’s business — at rates that are below those negotiated decades ago when satellite radio was an infant industry with an uncertain future.”
A spokeswoman for SiriusXM declined to comment on BMI’s case.
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BMI is a so-called performance rights organization that collects copyright royalties owed to publishers and songwriters when their songs are performed publicly, offering blanket licenses that allow for the use of more than 22 million tracks. When BMI cannot agree with a licensee like SiriusXM, either side can ask a federal judge to decide the dispute and set a reasonable rate.
In doing so on Thursday, BMI pointed to what it sees as key shifts in SiriusXM’s business model since the two last negotiated a licensing deal in 2018 – namely, an increasing reliance on internet streaming rather than old-school satellite radio.
“As a result of these changes, SiriusXM’s business has shifted and is becoming more akin to a music streaming service than a traditional satellite radio or broadcast radio,” BMI’s attorneys wrote. “Digital music services pay higher rates to BMI than satellite radio, and the new SiriusXM rate should reflect this expansion of digital performances.”
The specific terms of the royalty rate that BMI is seeking from SiriusXM were not disclosed in court filings because BMI said it was “competitively sensitive.” The new rate would cover the period from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2026.
In a statement announcing the case on Thursday, BMI said that songwriters “should not have to accept an outdated rate that significantly undervalues their music.”
“After attempting to negotiate with SiriusXM in good faith for more than two years, we were compelled to file this action given their insistence on underpaying the creators of the music that drives the majority of their business,” BMI president Mike O’Neill wrote. “We will continue to fight for fair and appropriate rates when we believe the music created by our songwriters and composers is being significantly undervalued.”
The filing of the new case was celebrated Thursday by the National Music Publishers’ Association, with president and CEO David Israelite saying the group was “extremely pleased” with BMI’s decision to “demand what’s fair.”
“Companies like SiriusXM have massive profit margins fueled by music creators,” Israelite said in a statement. “We fully support BMI in their fight for the value of songs.”
BMI isn’t the only rights group in a dispute with SiriusXM over its shift toward streaming. In a lawsuit last year, SoundExchange accused the company of using bookmaking trickery – namely, manipulating how it bundles its satellite and streaming offerings – as part of a scheme to “grossly underpay” royalties by more than $150 million. SiriusXM later fired back, denying the lawsuit’s “misguided allegations.” That case remains pending.
Go read BMI’s full petition against SiriusXM here:
SiriusXM’s stock rose 2.6% on Tuesday (Sept. 10), the first full day of trading since it merged with Liberty Media’s tracking stock to create a single, streamlined public stock. SiriusXM said last December that it would merge its stock with Liberty SiriusXM Holdings to simplify and eliminate confusion around its multiple share classes and create […]
SiriusXM signed a multi-year agreement with podcast star Alex Cooper that will give the company exclusive advertising and distribution rights to Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast as well as other titles under Unwell Audio Network, a production house she founded in 2023. Cooper became a leading Gen Z media figure when Call Her Daddy launched […]
Radio stocks struggled this week as companies’ second-quarter earnings revealed additional revenue losses.
SiriusXM shares fell 15.6% after the company’s second-quarter earnings on Thursday (Aug. 1) showed a loss of 173,000 satellite radio subscribers and 41,000 Pandora subscribers. Revenue fell 3% to $2.18 billion, although net profit improved 2% to $316 million. In the first quarter, SiriusXM lost 594,000 subscribers, although revenue improved 0.8% to $2.16 billion.
SiriusXM is trying to thread the needle as it expands its product line and gives consumers more options. The new $9.99-per-month streaming service is intended to appeal to a broader audience than potential satellite radio subscribers. At the same time, the company is introducing new pricing tiers for satellite radio, including a $9.99 music-only subscription that can expand to news, talk and sports for additional fees. The trick is not cannibalizing its core, higher-priced satellite offering. “The early results in our testing have been encouraging,” CEO Jennifer Witz said during Thursday’s earnings call. “It shows that we’re getting consumers into the right packages for them.”
Shares of radio broadcaster Cumulus Media fell 21% to $1.62 and dropped as far as $1.29 on Friday (Aug. 2) — a 52-week low — after the company’s second-quarter earnings showed that revenue fell 2.5% and net loss increased to $27.7 million from $1.1 million a year earlier. iHeartMedia, which doesn’t report earnings until Thursday (Aug. 8), appeared to be a casualty of Cumulus Media’s results as its shares fell 12.9% to $1.49.
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Collectively, radio companies have had the worst stock performance of all music companies this year. Year to date, Cumulus Media is down 69.5%, iHeartMedia has fallen 44.2% and SiriusXM is off 42.6%. Only JYP Entertainment, which has fallen 44.3% year to date, has suffered a similar drop.
The Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI), a measure of the market capitalizations of 20 publicly traded music companies, fell 1.1% to 1,739.18. Even though 13 of the 20 stocks lost ground — five of them suffering double-digit declines — gains by some of the index’s most valuable companies nearly offset the losses. HYBE improved 5.3% to 180,800 won ($139.01). Spotify gained 2.8% to $331.02. And Universal Music Group (UMG) rose 0.5% to 21.44 euros ($23.41).
Music stocks have had a case of the summer doldrums after soaring in the winter and spring. The BGMI has fallen for four consecutive weeks and stands 5.9% below its all-time high of 1,847.64 set on May 17. On Friday, the index reached its lowest point since April 19.
Music companies’ losses were compounded by sharp declines in U.S. stock markets on Friday after news that the unemployment rate rose in July stoked fears the economy could enter a recession. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.4% this week and stood in “correction” territory, at 10.1% below its all-time high set on July 11. Amazon fell 8.0% after missing revenue expectations and providing investors with a disappointing forecast. Intel fell 31.5% after announcing broad layoffs, reporting a decline in quarterly revenue and issuing weak guidance.
The S&P 500 dropped 2.1% to 5,346.56. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 gained 2.3% to 8,474.71. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index dropped 2.0% to 2,676.19. China’s Shanghai Composite Index improved 0.5% to 2,905.34.
The week’s greatest gainer was K-pop company JYP Entertainment, which rose 6% to 56,400 won ($41.53). JYP was added to the BGMI this week after Hipgnosis Songs Fund was removed from the London Stock Exchange once its acquisition by Blackstone was completed. Three other K-pop companies were among the week’s few gainers: HYBE improved 5.3%, YG Entertainment rose 2.1% and and SM Entertainment increased 1.0%.
Reservoir Media dropped 14.4% to $7.37 after releasing its quarterly earnings on Wednesday (July 31). Tencent Music Entertainment, which will report earnings on Aug. 13, fell 10.5% to $12.62. Warner Music Group (WMG) fell 5.3% to $28.26. In the wake of UMG’s latest earnings results, which showed a slowdown in subscription revenue, J.P. Morgan dropped its price target on shares of WMG — which will report earnings on Aug. 7 — to $41.00 from $42.00.
SiriusXM Holdings stock fell by more than 6% on Thursday after the satellite radio and streaming content company said it lost 173,000 subscribers in the quarter ending on June 30.
The company said it lost approximately 100,000 SiriusXM self-pay subscribers and 73,000 paid promotional subscribers. While that was an improvement from the same period last year, and churn remained steady at 1.5%, it caused a 5% decline in SiriusXM subscriber revenue and $0.42 year-over-year decrease in average revenue per user (ARPU) to $15.24. That pushed SiriusXM Holdings’ second quarter revenue down 3% to $2.18 billion, below analysts’ expectations.
On a call discussing the quarter’s earnings, executives sought to emphasize Sirius’ improved profit margin and lower operating expenses, despite signing big-ticket deals for podcast powerhouses like SmartLess Media earlier this year.
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“SiriusXM’s financial position remains robust as we steadily enhance our business and establish a sustainable foundation for growth,” Sirius CEO Jennifer Witz said on the call, reiterating the company’s 2024 financial targets. “With these solid margins and declining capital expenditures, we anticipate converting more of this strong EBITDA into growing free cash flow in the coming years.”
Quarterly profit rose 2% to $316 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was flat year over year at $702 million and its adjusted EBITDA margin held steady at 32%.
Sirius reported operating expenses fell 5.5% on lower costs of running SiriusXM and Pandora and off-platform services across the board and lower personnel costs after the companies’ two rounds of layoffs over the last 18 months. Subscriber acquisition costs decreased by 1%. Free cash flow in the quarter rose 6% to $343 million.
“We think the key for the stock is conversion of self-pay trials,” Steven Cahill, equity analyst at Wells Fargo, wrote in a report for investors on Thursday. “Self-pay conversion in new [and] used car is arguably [SiriusXM Holdings’] biggest key performance indicator as it looks to improve capture of younger car buyers versus digital competition. We think Q2 self-pay converstion were down to around 30%-32% from 33% in the prior quarter.”
While SiriusXM saw declines in both subscriber and advertising revenue, Pandora and off-platform segments reported an 8% rise in subscriber revenue to $138 million. The segment’s advertising revenue held flat at $400 million from the same quarter a year ago.
Late last year, Sirius announced plans for a 10-to-1 reverse stock split and merger with Liberty Media’s SiriusXM Group tracking stock, a move aimed at bolstering the company’s faltering stock price. Executives said Thursday that transaction will close on Sept. 9. The Nasdaq-listed SiriusXM Holdings has seen its stock price fall by more than 65% from a 52-week high of $7.95, leading the Nasdaq to drop SiriusXM from its Nasdaq-100 Index last Thursday (June 13).
SiriusXM’s stock price was down 6.25% to $3.22 as of 12.25 p.m. New York time.
SiriusXM is facing a class action lawsuit that claims the company has been earning billions in revenue by tacking a deceptive “royalty fee” onto consumers’ bills.
In a complaint filed last week in federal court, attorneys for four aggrieved subscribers claim that SiriusXM adds a “U.S. Music Royalty Fee” – allegedly 21.4 percent of the actual advertised price – onto the normal price that users pay for satellite radio plans.
“This action challenges a deceptive pricing scheme whereby SiriusXM falsely advertises its music plans at lower prices than it actually charges,” attorneys for the users write. “SiriusXM intentionally does not disclose the Fee to its subscribers. SiriusXM even goes so far as to not mention the words ‘U.S. Music Royalty Fee’ in any of its advertising, including in the fine print.”
The lawsuit claims the royalty fee is an “invented” charge that SiriusXM has “deceptively” labeled to falsely suggest that it’s mandated by the government to pay for music rights. In reality, the lawsuit says, it’s a really just a “disguised double-charge for the music plan itself” that no other competing music services imposes on their users.
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“Reasonable consumers would expect that the advertised price for SiriusXM’s music plans would include the fundamental costs of obtaining the permissions necessary to provide the music content that SiriusXM has promised is included in those plans,” lawyers for the subscribers say.
According to the lawsuit, SiriusXM has reaped huge benefits from the “unlawful advertising scheme” since it was implemented in 2009, allegedly collecting $1.36 billion in such royalty fees in 2023 alone. In just in the states of Washington and Florida — the locations where the plaintiffs live — the lawsuit claims Sirius has collected $932 million in royalty fees since the charge was created.
And, according to the complaint, SiriusXM allegedly tries its best to ensure that consumers never find out: “SiriusXM’s sign-up process, automatic renewal process, and policy of not sending monthly or ongoing billing notices or invoices are deliberately designed to prevent subscribers from learning of the U.S. Music Royalty Fee.”
Those allegations echo claims made by New York’s attorney general, who sued SiriusXM in December over claims that the company made it “extremely difficult” for listeners to cancel their subscriptions. In a statement at the time, SiriusXM called those claims “baseless allegations” that “grossly mischaracterize” its customer service practices.
The new lawsuit was filed in the form of a proposed class action, aimed at eventually representing “millions of individuals” who have allegedly paid the royalty fee after seeing a lower price advertised.
“To be clear, plaintiffs are not seeking to regulate the existence or amount of the U.S. Music Royalty Fee,” lawyers for the subscribers wrote. “Rather, plaintiffs want SiriusXM to include the [fee] in the music plan prices it advertises to the general public.”
A representative for SiriusXM did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
SiriusXM had its best week since December 2023 this week, leading all music stocks in a week when the losers outnumbered the winners two to one. Shares of the company jumped 12.3% to $2.93 following the company’s decision to conduct a 1-for-10 reverse stock split when it merges with the Liberty Media SiriusXM Group tracking stock later this year. SiriusXM gained 16.4% in the week ended Dec. 15, 2023.
The reverse split is meant to boost SiriusXM’s beleaguered share price. After years of steady growth in its satellite radio business, the company has suffered declines in both revenue and satellite subscribers as it attempts to build a competitive streaming service. The company lost 445,000 self-pay subscribers in 2023 — a 1% decline — and experienced a 1.4% drop in the first quarter of 2024. The revamped streaming app launched in December at $9.99 per month, about half the average revenue per user generated from satellite radio subscriptions in 2023.
SiriusXM was the only music stock to post a double-digit gain this week and one of only six stocks in the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index to see growth. With 13 stocks declining and one — French music company Believe — unchanged, the index fell 0.3% to 1,814.88. On average, live music stocks fared the best with an average gain of 0.6%. Other segments posted declines: streaming stocks fell 3.7%, radio stocks dropped 2.9%, and record labels and publishers dipped 1.3%.
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Live Nation rose 4.7% to $92.96, its highest closing price since June 5. The company’s shares are down 8.3% since the Department of Justice brought an antitrust lawsuit that seeks to break up its concert promotion and ticketing operations, but it’s held steady since an initial post-lawsuit drop. Friday’s closing price was just 52 cents below the price the day after the lawsuit was announced on May 23.
Shares of Spotify rose 1.5% to $317.86 to mark their third successive weekly gain. Cost-cutting and price-hiking have helped Spotify’s stock gain 69.2% in 2024 and 101.8% in the last 52 weeks. There was more price-related news on Friday (June 21) as Spotify revealed a new “basic” plan in the United States, which costs $10.99 per month and offers users a plan that doesn’t include audiobooks. The “premium individual” plan includes both music and 15 hours of audiobook listening for $11.99 per month, while the “audiobook access” tier provides 15 hours of audiobook listening and the ad-supported music service for $9.99 per month.
iHeartMedia was the index’s worst performer after dropping 17.4% to $1.00. The radio giant’s stock is down 62.5% year to date amidst a weak radio advertising market and steady growth at competing streaming services. LiveOne fell 12.6% to $1.59, bringing its year-to-date gain to 13.6%.
Music was outperformed by broader indexes as stocks reached new highs this week. On Thursday (June 20), the S&P 500 set a new all-time high of 5,503.53 and the Nasdaq composite reached a new high of 17,936.79. For the week, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 5,464.62 and the Nasdaq composite was barely above breakeven at 17,689.36. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 rose 1.1% to 8,237.72. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index gained 0.9% to 2,784.26. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.1% to 2,998.14.
Sirius XM Holdings announced a 1-for-10 reverse stock split for its shareholders when it merges with Liberty Media’s SiriusXM Group tracking stock later this year, sending the streaming and satellite radio company’s stock up 4.5% on Tuesday (June 18). The stock split, which was announced in a filing on Sunday (June 16), is meant to […]