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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 […]
Jeremy Tepper, a musician, journalist and the program director of SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel, has died. He was 60.
Tepper passed away on Friday (June 14) from a heart attack at his home in New York City, according to a social media post by his wife, singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell.
“Lost my good friend Jeremy Tepper last night,” Steven Van Zandt, guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and founder of Underground Garage, wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “An incredibly tragic loss so young. He ran my Outlaw Country station on SiriusXM brilliantly. It is actually quite a complicated format and he made it look easy. Our deepest love and condolences to Laura and his family and friends.”
Lost my good friend Jeremy Tepper last night. An incredibly tragic loss so young. He ran my Outlaw Country station on SiriusXM brilliantly. It is actually quite a complicated format and he made it look easy. Our deepest love and condolences to Laura and his family and friends. pic.twitter.com/WA8tj3kkA1— 🕉🇺🇦🟦Stevie Van Zandt☮️💙 (@StevieVanZandt) June 15, 2024
Born in 1963, the New York native graduated with a degree in journalism from NYU and served as the frontman for the band World Famous Blue Jays.
During his career, Tepper founded independent country label Diesel Only Records and held A&R and marketing positions for CDuctive and eMusic.com. He was also a journalist, having previously served as editor of The Journal of Country Music and as a country music critic for Tower Records’ Pulse! magazine.
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In 2004, he joined Sirius as format manager of the radio giant’s Outlaw Country channel, which was created by Zandt, who served as its executive producer. The channel mixes music by country and Americana artists such as Waylon Jennings, Dale Watson, Dwight Yoakam, Johnny Cash and Lucinda Williams with rockers Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the Band.
Tepper’s two-decade run with Sirius also found him working on the Willie’s Roadhouse and Road Dog Trucking channels.
“Jeremy Tepper, a beloved member of SiriusXM, profoundly influenced us with his unwavering dedication to music and innovative spirit,” SiriusXM wrote on X. “His contributions, in shaping Outlaw Country and Willie’s Roadhouse, are beyond measure. Our thoughts are with his loved ones during this time.”
Tepper is survived by his wife, Cantrell, and their daughter, Bella.
Jeremy Tepper, a beloved member of SiriusXM, profoundly influenced us with his unwavering dedication to music and innovative spirit. His contributions, in shaping Outlaw Country and Willie’s Roadhouse, are beyond measure. Our thoughts are with his loved ones during this time. pic.twitter.com/rZxB8LZHsS— SiriusXM (@SIRIUSXM) June 15, 2024
If you listen to enough Howard Stern you know that as much as he loves his SiriusXM channels, more work is the last thing he wants. But the veteran broadcaster has long held a special place in his heart for his sister rock channel, Lithium, so on Wednesday morning (June 12) Stern will help kick off SiriusXM’s new Guest DJ campaign by doing a takeover in which he gets to spin some of his favorite songs and tell a few stories about why they are so special to him.
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“Hi everybody, this is Howard Stern and welcome to the Howard Stern Guest DJ,” Stern says in his intro to the stunt. “Over the years I feature a lot of music on the show, I interview a lot of musicians, I just love music. And I also talk about music because I used to professional radio DJ.” In his best announcer voice, Stern then jokes that during his DJ stint he learned the delicate art of “talk-ups,” where a DJ speaks over a song’s instrumental intro until just before the vocals kick in.
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Or as Stern described it, “where you talk over really good songs and ruin them.” He notes that on his three-day-a-week Howard 100 show he often plays his favorite songs and talks about why he loves them, which is why he wanted to share his personal home playlist during his Lithium guest spot.
In a perfect example of a song-ruining talk-up, Stern describes how much he thinks about late Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland while playing the band’s 1994 hit “Vasoline,” saying, “what a charismatic dude. We had him on the show a bunch of times and I used to go to Stone Temple Pilot concerts and see him perform and… fabulous band. And I would go and I’d think, ‘geez, he’s got it all. He’s f–kin’ good looking. He can sing like an angel.’” Stern also reveals some background about the lyrics he gleaned from the band’s other members, talking through almost the entire song as longtime co-host Robin Quivers adds some of her patented positive accents to his banter.
In addition to songs by Soundgarden (“Black Hole Sun”), Jimi Hendrix (“Are You Experienced?”), Aurora (“Life on Mars?”) and Public Enemy (“911 Is a Joke”), Stern will also queue up the Rolling Stones’ 1971 Sticky Fingers track “Moonlight Mile,” calling it the “epitome of a great song. This is when music was staggeringly good. How did he come up with this? How does that happen?”
Stern says the only thing he knows about the song is that singer Mick Jagger came up with it while sitting on a train and staring at the moon before going home to write the lyrics. He then goes into one of his patented digressions about being raised with a deficit of emotion that he wore like a “suit of armor” his whole life that has started cracking as he’s gotten older. In theory, that sounds to him like a great idea for a song. But, unlike Jagger’s emotional revelation on his train ride, Stern says, “and then I sat and thought about this and nothing happened! There was no song!”
The special will premiere today at 11 a.m. on Lithium and is available anytime on the SiriusXM app. The Guest DJ campaign will feature more than 70 other entertainers doing take-overs, including: James Corden, Kate Hudson, Kevin Hart, Busy Philipps, Rob Lowe, Conan O’Brien, Andy Cohen, Gayle King, NFL player Maxx Crosby, NASCAR’s Chase Elliot and more. The campaign will be heard on more than 35 SiriusXM channels across a variety of genres.
Listen to Stern on Lithium below.
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The Billie Eilish multi-media blitz in advance of the upcoming release of her third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, will kick off in earnest on Friday (May 10) with the launch of Billie Eilish Radio on SiriusXM. The dedicated streaming channel will debut at noon E.T. with a mix curated by the “What […]
A dip in SiriusXM‘s paid subscribers in the first quarter caused the satellite radio giant’s stock to fall by more than 7% on Tuesday (April 30), even as first-quarter revenue beat analysts’ expectations.
The company reported that first-quarter revenue inched 0.8% higher to $2.16 billion — analysts polled by the London Stock Exchange were expecting $2.13 billion — thanks mainly to a 7% uptick in ad sales revenue.
Ad revenue totaled $402 million in the quarter, enough to offset a 1% decline in subscription revenue, which came in at $1.68 billion and contributes nearly 80% of the company’s overall earnings.
A 1.4% decline in self-pay subscribers to 31.58 million customers in the quarter contributed to “slightly higher churn” as an increase in sales of vehicles with existing subscriptions led to those subscribers shifting into unpaid trials, SiriusXM CFO Tom Barry said on a call with analysts.
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Executives reiterated their 2024 guidance and said they expected improvements in their subscription revenue, trial subscriptions and ad revenue in the second half of the year.
Despite the rollout of a new and costly streaming app with features SiriusXM says allow it to tailor content to subscribers, executives faced questions from analysts over what will charge future growth.
“On the business side, it’s really about reinvigorating demand,” SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz said on the call. “It’s taking longer than we’d hoped in terms of the rollout of the new platform and our ability to capitalize on improvements in marketing. But the key opportunities to build demand … are clear, across price, discovery and control, and we have this multipronged effort to [drive] these things.”
The company is hopeful that the revamped app, which launched in December and costs $9.99 per month, will attract new subscribers and drive revenue growth.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 4% to $650 million. The company’s gross profit edged 0.6% higher to $1.13 billion, while the gross profit margin held flat at 53% in the quarter compared to last year. Total operating expenses held roughly flat at $1.73 billion.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is a big investor in SiriusXM, having purchased nearly 9.7 million shares worth approximately $44 million last fall and then another 1.9 million shares worth $50 million of its tracking stock earlier this month.
In February, SiriusXM laid off 3% of its workforce affecting around 170 workers at the company, which said the cuts would enable it to invest in content and new technologies.
SiriusXM’s stock closed at $2.92 on Tuesday (April 30), down 7.2%.
Eleven months after SiriusXM cut 8% of its workforce, the company announced on Monday (Feb. 12) that it will eliminate another 3% of its staff. The layoffs will impact about 170 jobs based on the company’s head count of 5,680 full-time and part-time employees as of Dec. 31, according to its 2023 annual report.
The cuts will affect every team and business unit and will enable SiriusXM to invest in its content, marketing and technology platform, a company spokesperson told Billboard.
In a memo to staff announcing the cuts, CEO Jennifer Witz used much of the same language that executives at Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Spotify employed to explain decisions to restructure those companies and reduce headcount. Not only is SiriusXM reducing its salary expense, but it’s also building for the future and investing in new technologies.
“We made significant progress on the transformation of our business in 2023, but we have just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible here at SiriusXM,” Witz wrote in the memo. “To continue on our path to future subscriber growth and sustain our Company’s success as the competitive landscape evolves, it’s imperative that we become even more efficient, agile, and flexible. Therefore, today we are making several organizational changes, including the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles, which will allow us to move faster and collaborate more effectively in support of our long-term objectives. From uniting teams and better aligning initiatives, to investing in new technologies that will power our transformation, we are focused on increasing efficiencies and redeploying resources to support the strategic priorities of our business.”
Once-dependable revenue growth has been harder to find as many consumers shift their listening to streaming services. In 2023, SiriusXM’s revenue fell 0.6% to $7.95 billion as the company lost 445,000 self-pay subscribers to its satellite radio service. Despite reducing its headcount to 5,680 from 5,869 during 2023, general and administrative expenses increased 5% to $550 million last year, and its operating margin fell from 22.6% to 21.7% .
SiriusXM is hopeful its revamped streaming app — and a $9.99-per-month price tag, which is lower than the satellite radio service — will attract new subscribers and mark the return of revenue growth. The new app launched Dec. 14 and “is yielding promising signs of improved engagement,” Witz said during the Feb. 1 earnings call. The apps personalization features and reduced latency, along with a redesigned SiriusXM logo, have created “a positive lift in brand perception among the growth audience segments we are looking to attract,” she added.
Investors tend to react positively to news of layoffs made to reduce costs and speed a transformation. Shares of SiriusXM rose as much as 3.1% to $5.05 Monday morning and stood at $5.01, up 2.1%, in the mid-afternoon.
SiriusXM added 131,000 self-pay subscribers in the fourth quarter and beat its full-year guidance for earnings and free cash flow while only slightly missing its revenue goal, the company announced Thursday (Feb. 1). The satellite radio giant lost 445,000 self-pay subscribers for the full year, however.
Full-year revenue declined 0.6% to $8.95 billion, slightly below last quarter’s guidance of $9 billion. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) declined 2% to $2.8 billion, coming in a little above guidance of $2.75 billion. Free cash flow of $1.2 billion was down about 23% but beat guidance by $50 million.
SiriusXM, built on a satellite radio service favored by older consumers, is in re-building mode. The company launched a new app in November and a $9.99-per-month streaming-only subscription service aimed at younger audiences who don’t listen primarily in their cars. The app houses Sirius’ 400-plus channels in addition to an audio library and a growing stable of podcast content that includes such brands as Smartless, which earlier this week left Amazon’s Wondery after striking a $100 million deal with SiriusXM, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco, which SiriusXM acquired in 2022.
The strategy isn’t likely to produce results this year, though. “While early indications are showing signs of positive impacts of our business investments, it will take time for these to fully reflect in our subscriber and financial metrics,” said CEO Jennifer Witz during Thursday’s earnings call.
While SiriusXM expects “roughly level” subscriber numbers in 2024, new streaming-only subscribers pay less than satellite radio subscribers and will result in a lower average revenue per user. Those factors, along with an advertising market Witz called “uncertain,” leads the company to expect two of its key financial metrics to fall in 2024. Full-year revenue guidance of $8.75 billion would be a 2.2% decline from $8.95 billion in 2023, while adjusted EBITDA guidance of $2.7 billion would mark a 3.3% year-over-year decline. Free cash flow is expected to remain at $1.2 billion.
Investors appeared to have baked the rebuild process into their forecasts and did not react negatively to Thursday’s earnings results. Shares of SiriusXM rose as much as 5.1% on Thursday morning and closed at $5.23, up 2.8%.
SiriusXM’s satellite radio service generated full-year revenue of $6.8 billion, down 1% year over year. Self-pay subscribers grew 131,000 in the fourth quarter after falling 96,000 in the third quarter. For the full year, self-pay subscribers fell by 445,000 to approximately 34 million. Paid promotional subscribers dropped by 225,000 in the fourth quarter but increased by 15,000 for the full year.
Pandora revenue increased 1% to $1.6 billion, while its subscribers fell 3% to 6.0 million, down from 6.2 million at the end of 2022. The music streaming service finished the year with 46.0 million monthly active users, down 3.4% from 47.6 million in the prior-year period. Total ad-supported listener hours of 10.48 billion in 2023 was down 4% from 10.88 billion in 2022. Pandora’s gross profit dipped 3% to $638 million.
SiriusXM laid off 8% of its staff in March 2023, which resulted in approximately $140 million in cost savings, CFO Tom Barry said on Thursday. This year, the company is targeting nearly $200 million in additional savings, he added, that will be “reinvested” in “more targeted and more performance-oriented marketing on the streaming side.”
SiriusXM’s full-year 2023 financial metrics
Total revenue of $8.95 billion, down 0.6%.
Adjusted EBITDA of $2.8 billion, down 2%.
Free cash flow of $1.2 billion, down 23%.
SiriusXM revenue of $6.8 billion, down 1%.
Pandora revenue of $1.6 billion, up 1%.
SiriusXM satellite radio self-pay subscribers of 34 million.
Pandora subscribers of 6 million.
SiriusXM and Stitcher will not have to face a lawsuit from former Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek accusing them of reneging on a $700,000 podcast deal.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Broadbelt, in a tentative order issued on Friday, dismissed the suit, finding that the audio giant “did not enter into a contract” with the actor since they didn’t finalize the agreement.
Van Der Beek said he reached a deal over email with executives from SiriusXM to host 40 episodes in exchange for a $700,000 minimum guarantee and a 50 percent cut of the net ad revenue. He sued in 2022 after the company walked away from the agreement.
Ruling in favor of SiriusXM on summary judgment, the court concluded that the two sides aren’t bound by an April 2022 document outlining the terms of the deal. It pointed to the first page of the proposal, which states that it’s for “discussion purposes only, is not a binding commitment in any respect, and is not to be interpreted in any respect as a binding commitment to negotiate.”
There was extensive evidence presented to the court referencing the need to sign a definitive, longform agreement contemplated in the initial proposal. Included among them was an email from Stitcher’s Associate Director of Business Development Leah Reis-Dennis, who stated in an April 2022 email “we are ready to call terms officially closed and (finally!) get the longform started.”
Van Der Beek argued that the proposal constitutes a valid, binding contract because Reis-Dennis made various comments indicating that the terms were “closed.”
“However, in those emails, Reis-Dennis also stated that Defendants would be working to begin drafting the longform agreement or request that the longform be drafted,” stated the order, which noted that the actor’s transactional lawyer also discussed having to sign the document to lock down the deal.
Broadbelt also rejected arguments that SiriusXM should be bound by the April 2022 document because the company already started to fulfill some of its terms by beginning the process of hiring a senior producer and requesting Van Der Beek’s payroll information.
In a declaration to the court, Reis-Dennis testified that she requested “loanout info” in order to set up payments to the actor but clarified that she would pay him only “if that agreement was signed.”
The order explained, “Plaintiff has not presented any evidence or argument showing that Reis-Dennis’s request for information to set up payments in the future (1) is inconsistent with the earlier statements that the parties would be bound only upon the execution of a longform agreement, or (2) constitutes an outward manifestation that Defendants intended to be bound by the terms of the April 28 Proposal without such a longform agreement.”
Van Der Beek brought claims relating to breach of contract and sought damages exceeding the $700,000 agreement.
SiriusXM, which was represented by Jordan Susman of Nolan Heimann, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.