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Shares of SiriusXM soared 49.1% this week due to a “short squeeze” related to a trading strategy involving its parent company, Liberty Media. The stock rose 49.1% to $7.08, turning an 18.7% year-to-date loss into a 21.2% year-to-date gain.
On Thursday (July 22), SiriusXM shares increased 42.3% as 128 million shares were traded — about 6.7 times the average daily trading volume. The price fell 9.3% on Friday to close at $7.08 as trading volume reached 132.9 million shares.
As an article at Barron’s explained, SiriusXM, a heavily shorted stock, has benefitted from investors taking a long position in Liberty SiriusXM Group — a tracking that includes SiriusXM — and a short position in SiriusXM. (A short position is a bet that a stock price will decline. A long position is a bet the stock price will increase.) Those positions would benefit if Liberty SiriusXM Group, viewed as an inexpensive alternative to SiriusXM, was able to narrow the gap to SiriusXM. But SiriusXM shares have risen in recent months, turning the short into a losing bet.
Investors who short a stock must buy back borrowed shares to cover their short position. When a stock has a small public float — as SiriusXM does — demand for a limited number of available shares can drive up the price. This isn’t happening just with SiriusXM: Heavily shorted stocks helped the stock market rally in the first half of the year. “As expected, shorts are getting squeezed in these losing trades and we are seeing short covering in these stocks — helping drive stock prices even higher alongside the momentum long buying we are seeing in these stocks,” Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of S3 Partners, told Yahoo Finance last week.
SiriusXM was — by far — the best-performing music stock this week, as the Billboard Global Music Index rose 6.8% to 1,447.32, bringing the year-to-date gain to 23.9%. Eight of the index’s 21 stocks were in negative territory, one was unchanged and 12 stocks posted gains this week.
French music streamer Deezer boasted the week’s second-biggest improvement after gaining 10.3% to 2.58 euros ($2.87). On Thursday, the company announced it had renewed its partnership with telecom company Orange, which will continue to drive customer acquisition in its home market. Under the new partnership, Deezer and Orange will offer new customers six free months of Deezer Premium.
Live music companies also had a good week. Shares of Sphere Entertainment Co. gained another 8.9%. German concert promoter CTS Eventim improved 6.9%. And Live Nation shares rose 2.5% after Oppenheimer initiated coverage of the company with a $110 price target, suggesting the stock has a 14% upside from its $96.84 closing price on Friday.
SiriusXM will ensure you get more CoComelon and Blippi in your daily diet with the launch of Moonbug Radio. The satellite radio service today (June 7) unveils the exclusive new channel, a collaboration with Moonbug Entertainment, a subsidiary of Candle Media, the global entertainment company behind some of world’s most popular kids’ content. Moonbug Radio […]
In order to meet the growing demand for physical music and video in the United Kingdom, Utopia Music has entered a long-term contract with DP World for a £100 million ($124.8 million), 25,000-square meter warehouse in Bicester, United Kingdom. The new warehouse will feature technologically advanced solutions, including high-density storage and robotic transfer of product, to enable the efficient distribution of over 30 million units a year across the United Kingdom and export markets. Stock will be moving from Utopia Distribution Services’ current warehouse in Aylesbury, United Kingdom (inherited from physical distributor Cinram, whose assets were acquired by Utopia in 2022) to the new facility over the summer.
Swedish Web3 music company anotherblock has raised €4 million ($4.34 million) in an investment round led by Stride.VC and joined by Swedish House Mafia member Axwell (whose Swedish House Mafia partner, Steve Angello, previously invested in the company). The money will be used to help anotherblock scale globally and make its product available to a wider range of artists, producers and record companies.
Seeker Music has acquired the masters and publishing catalog of Charlotte Caffey — lead guitarist, keyboardist and primary songwriter for The Go-Go’s. Caffey wrote some of the group’s biggest hits, including their breakthrough song, “We Got the Beat,” as well as “Head Over Heels,” “Vacation,” “How Much More” and “Turn To You.” Caffey has also written songs for artists including Keith Urban (“But for the Grace of God”) and her Go-Go’s bandmate Belinda Carlisle, as well as songs for film and TV including the theme song for the Clueless TV series. The deal was brokered by veteran record executives Michael Rosenblatt and David Simone.
300 Entertainment has partnered with Florida-based imprint Remain Solid, founded by manager and executive 100k Track, for a label joint venture. The first artist signed under the deal is Brooklyn-based rapper BreezyLYN, who released the remix to her single, “Bad Bitches” featuring Lola Brooke and Kali, earlier this month.
Songtradr announced a partnership with TikTok around the video-sharing platform’s Commercial Music Library. Under the deal, Songtradr is now a certified “Subscription Sound Partner,” supplying music for the Commercial Music Library, which gives businesses, organizations and creators access to pre-licensed, rights-safe music for organic content and paid advertising.
Music technology companies Tuned Global and Revelator struck a partnership that will allow digital service providers and other Tuned Global customers to enable artists to mint and distribute music releases as NFTs directly on Web2 streaming platforms using Revelator’s Web3 tech. “These NFTs will coexist with traditional streamed music, enabling fans to enjoy digital collectibles and actively engage with token gated content, while providing artists with blockchain-based payment opportunities through smart contracts,” according to a press release announcing the deal. Added Revelator CEO/founder Bruno Guez: “This partnership lets music lovers collect NFTs in fan-friendly ways where they are already experiencing music. Fans won’t need to mess with wallets or special Web3 players, or even leave their favorite music platform. They’ll pay with a credit card. This access and ease will open up new revenue streams for artists, as more fans jump in.”
AI music startup AudioShake announced a $2.7 million seed funding round led by Indicator Ventures, with participation from Precursor Ventures and Side Door Ventures. Also taking part in the round are Metallica-backed Black Squirrel Partners, AJR, Google’s Black Angel Group, peermusic, Audius CEO Roneil Rumburg, S-Curve Records CEO Steve Greenberg and Crush Ventures, the venture arm of Crush Music, among others. Audioshake’s B2B deep learning technology deconstructs audio into stems so that they can be made available for new uses across music, film, dubbing, transcription, synthetic voice and more. The company has worked with departments from all three major labels as well as publishers including Primary Wave, Hipgnosis, Spirit, peermusic, Concord, Downtown and Reservoir.
Unitea, a Miami-based engage-to-earn music platform, has raised a seed round of $7 million led by 1st Class Guernsey, Chaos Capital and Fuel Venture Capital. The funds will be used to further expand the platform’s capabilities within the music industry and beyond. The platform allows users to share music and create content to earn digital tokens, called Karma, that can be redeemed for exclusive rewards including custom digital assets, concert tickets and artist meet-and-greets. The company’s board of directors includes Pitbull and Claude VonStroke.
Freshsound, a self-serve licensing platform for commercially released music, closed a €2 million ($2.17 million) seed funding round that will support the company as it seeks to expand internationally while continuing to grow in the Nordic market. The new investment comes less than a year after the company’s pre-seed funding round worth €1.3 million ($1.41 million). The latest investment round was led by Zenith Venture Capital and Aligned. Founded in 2021 by Stevie Gyasi and Sara Larsson, Freshsound boasts a dynamic pricing model that gives clients instant quotes for any use and the ability to license their music for commercial purposes.
CD Baby and creator copyright protection platform Cosynd have expanded their existing partnership with the integration of Cosynd’s Copyright Registration API into the CD Baby platform, which allows artists to register copyrights and establish legal ownership over their work.
Music, entertainment and technology platform LiveOne struck an exclusive content distribution deal with OTT Studio, a streaming technology platform and connected TV (CTV) app publisher. Under the deal, LiveOne will serve as OTT Studio’s exclusive music streaming provider, delivering LiveOne’s 600 radio stations via OTT’s Music Plus application. The agreement will expand the distribution of LiveOne’s audio and entertainment content to an additional 47 million CTVs in North America via LG’s webOS and Vizio’s SmartCast platforms.
SiriusXM announced a multi-year extension and expansion of their services agreement with Mercedes-Benz, under which the automaker is expected to make the installation of SiriusXM a standard feature on Mercedes-Benz models available in the United States, starting with model year 2024 vehicles. SiriusXM’s “most advanced audio entertainment experience,” SiriusXM with 360L, is also expected to be included in future Mercedes-Benz models, according to a press release.
Lyric licensing and data solutions company LyricFind signed an agreement with GEMA, Germany’s mechanical and performance rights society, in a further expansion of LyricFind’s international footprint.
During Howard Stern’s trip to Miami this week to help open SiriusXM’s new studios, he sat down with his old pal Jon Bon Jovi for some serious talk about rock and roll. In between his incessant complaining about being forced by his bosses to leave the house after working from home for the past three years, Stern took time to ask Bon Jovi singer Jon Bon Jovi to play one of his favorite games: who is the greatest guitarist of all time?
“Beck,” Bon Jovi said without hesitation during the surprise studio pop-in. “Jeff Beck,” he confirmed of the legendary guitarist who died in January at 78 as a surprised Stern rattled off the list of artists he expected the singer to mention, including Jimi Hendrix. “Jimi Hendrix, would of course be in the starting lineup, but you put me on the spot,” said Bon Jovi. Stern’s inquisition went on, with the host dropping names including Eddie Van Halen and Prince, with the latter seconded by Bon Jovi’s wife, Dorothea.
“Eddie, Prince… all different, but I was in the room with Jeff Beck when he took a guitar out of a cardboard box with a rented amplifier and no pedals and created that sound when we did the ‘Young Guns’ record and he was my guitar player,” Bon Jovi said of the solo Young Guns II soundtrack collab with Beck on the 1990 Billboard No. 1 hit “Blaze of Glory.”
“I sat there flabbergasted because Jeff Beck did things with his fingers, with his thumb that would blow your mind,” Bon Jovi recalled, then listing Hendrix, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler as greats as well, noting that while all stellar, it really comes down to their songwriting ability as well.
The guitar talk came after Stern’s wife, Beth, arrived with her surprise guests in the spanking new studio, with the host welcoming the couple in, then promptly insisting on the lascivious details of how they celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary. Dorothea then admitted that Jon was always the cutest boy in high school while the rocker reminisced about his long friendship with fellow New Jersey icon Bruce Springsteen, including the first time they played together when Bon Jovi was just 17-years-old.
The old pals — Stern very reluctantly inducted Bon Jovi into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame in 2018 — also reminisced about the recent hourslong car ride they took at Jon’s insistence to get Stern out of the house after his extended COVID lockdown.
Check out Bon Jovi talking Beck, their three-hour dar ride and more below.
Carrie Underwood is set to take fans deeper into her world via the launch her exclusive, year-round SiriusXM channel titled Carrie’s Country in June.
The channel, to be curated and presented by Underwood, will highlight a range of the eight-time Grammy winner’s favorite music, including country, rock and gospel, workout hits and more. Carrie’s Country original programming will include monthly themed shows, as well as morning workout and late-night, hard-rock music blocks and Savior Sunday — a full day of inspirational music from Underwood’s own gospel catalog as well as other music that is close to her heart. She will also invite friends, peers and fans to join as special guest DJs. She’ll also introduce listeners to her band members and touring crew, and will share her passions for fitness and wellness, as well as gardening.
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Over nearly two decades in music, Underwood has earned 16 No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits, as well as three ACM entertainer of the year honors. Carrie’s Country will highlight milestones from throughout Underwood’s career, in a regular feature inspired by her current Las Vegas residency, Reflection. Listeners will also hear music from artists including Keith Urban, Dolly Parton, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses and more.
“I’m thrilled to partner with SiriusXM on my new channel,” Underwood said via a statement. “I can’t wait to welcome listeners into my personal musical universe, sharing my favorite music across all of the genres I love, from classic rock to the latest in country.”
“Carrie Underwood is one of country music’s biggest and most multifaceted artists today, and to collaborate with her on her very own SiriusXM channel is truly special,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s president and chief content officer. “‘Carrie’s Country’ will give listeners and fans the opportunity to connect with her on a new level, beyond her musical choices and influences, as she curates the channel’s programming. We welcome her to the SiriusXM family as we continue to expand our country music offerings to our subscribers.”
With studios in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville and Washington D.C., SiriusXM can now also call Miami “home.” The audio entertainment company has officially opened their “state-of-the-art” broadcast complex that will operate in South Beach. SiriusXM is also set to launch a new Latin pop channel, Hits Uno, on Friday (May 5) which will become the station’s 17th Spanish-language channel.
“I’ve been with the company 15 years and when they told me that we were opening a state-of-the-art in Miami, in the hub of Latin music, I got so excited,” says Bryant Pino, director of Latin music programming at SiriusXM, who hosted artists such as CNCO and Zion & Lennox during a soft launch of the studios in March. “As a company, we’re doing things that really matter and are important, especially with what’s going on with Latin music right now.”
Latin music revenues in the United States hit an all-time high in 2022, exceeding the $1 billion mark on the wings of 24% growth that outpaced the overall market. According to the RIAA’s year-end Latin music report for 2022, total revenue jumped from $881 million in 2021 to $1.1 billion, with Latin music’s overall share of the total music market lifting from 5.9% in 2021 to 6.9%.
Opening studios in Miami and launching a new Latin channel is an acknowledgment of the culture’s growth, says Azu Olvera, SiriusXM’s senior director of Latin talent and industry relations.
“We’re not thinking of Latin as a backseat but as a driver of success and engagement. And when were coming up with the concept for the new channel, we wanted put together all these hits in one single channel that reflects the genre’s diversity.”
During the days leading up to Hits Uno, SiriusXM will host special live shows, including an intimate performance by Carlos Vives, an interview with Pitbull and a Becky G town hall-style conversation.
“With Hits Uno, we’ll be able to represent today’s Latin music fan,” adds Pino. “Back in the day you were a rockera, or reggaetonero but not both. Now, it’s cool to be eclectic, to listen to everything. We’re not a local radio station, this is not a Miami station but rather a nationwide platform so we’re going to be exposing people to global hits across all genres.”
The Howard Stern Show is airing live from the new Miami studios on Monday, May 1 through Wednesday, May 3. Stern, who has been working from home in recent years, will be joined live in the studio by special music and celebrity guests.
“Miami is an incredibly rich center for music and entertainment,” Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s resident and chief content officer, said in a statement. “SiriusXM Miami will capture the city’s unique culture and character and bring it to audiences across North America. We’re thrilled to have Howard kick things off in the biggest way with three exceptional days of shows, followed by a star-studded lineup of programming that showcases the broad array of content we offer, including the diverse and vibrant music emanating from the Latinx community.”
SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz‘s predictions last year that the first two quarters of 2023 would be “softer” proved right, as the audio entertainment company reported that revenues and subscribers edged lower in Q1.
SiriusXM reported revenues of $2.14 billion for the quarter ending March 31, marking a 2% drop, as revenue from subscribers and advertisers both fell between 1% and 2% compared with a year ago.
Still, those modest moves downward were better than the company had predicted for the start of the year, and executives raised their full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, debt and appreciation (EBITDA) to $2.75 billion from $2.7 billion. They also raised their free cash flow guidance to $1.1 billion from $1.05 billion for the year.
“We outperformed our initial financial expectations, putting us in a strong position to increase our full-year guidance,” Witz said on a call discussing earnings. “We intend to make prudent decisions to remain a very profitable business that continues to serve as a primary audio subscription service to certain audio segments while being complimentary to others.”
The company’s cost-cutting campaign — which has impacted its real estate footprint, workforce and marketing spend — helped allow for continued investment in tech improvements Witz says will improve future growth. Costs related to the new product launches, expected later this year, reached $68 million in the quarter, up 15% from a year ago.
However, the 17% reduction in sales and marketing spend, combined with lower numbers of customers starting trial subscriptions late last year, contributed to 347,000 fewer SiriusXM self-pay subscribers for the quarter. The company ended the quarter with 7.2 million trial users, compared to 6.9 million a year ago.
Self-pay subscribers of Pandora Plus and Premium tiers increased by 7,000 from the previous quarter, but the total number of subscribers edged 2% lower, to 6.2 million in the first quarter from a year ago.
“We are still expecting modestly negative [subscriber growth] for the year,” Witz said. “I would expect the second half to be positive, and that nets us out to the modestly negative.”
The company is in the process of updating the back-end technology and its SiriusXM app, tools Witz says will make it easier to find specific genres, make purchases in the car and elsewhere, and further personalize the experience. The hope is that this will enable the company to introduce new products to the app faster, a key part of its growth strategy.
“We are really focused on investing in this new platform and making sure that positions us for growth going forward,” Witz said on the earnings call.
Key SiriusXM Financial Highlights:
Overall
The company forecast it will generate approximately $9 billion in total revenue for 2023, along with $2.75 billion in adjusted EBITDA and $1.1 billion in free cash flow.
The company reported $2.14 billion in revenue, down 2% from the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA was down 9% from the year-ago quarter at $625 million.
SiriusXM Segment
SiriusXM reported segment revenues of $1.7 billion, down 2% from the prior-year period, due to lower ad revenue and vehicle paid promotional revenue.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) fell $0.24 to $15.29.
Self-pay subscribers decreased by 347,000.
SiriusXM’s total cost of services rose 2% to $664 million in the quarter on higher programming and royalty costs.
SiriusXM’s gross margin of 61% slipped one percentage point from the prior year.
Pandora and Off-Platform Segment
The Pandora and off-platform segment generated $462 million in revenue, down a slight 1% from the year-ago quarter’s $467 million.
Advertising revenue in the segment held roughly flat from a year ago.
The segment’s gross margin was 24%, down 5 percentage points from the prior-year period.
Satellite radio company SiriusXM Holdings said on Tuesday (April 4) that Thomas Barry will take over as chief financial officer later this month, according to a company statement.
Barry succeeds Sean Sullivan, who is leaving Sirius on April 28 for an opportunity at another publicly traded company “outside the industry,” according to the statement.
Barry, a 14-year veteran of SiriusXM, takes on the job of head of finances amid a company-wide reorganization that involved eliminating 475 jobs in March, as SiriusXM shifts resources into technology initiatives.
Barry has experience in “organizational transformation,” the company said, having played a key role in the integration of Sirius and XM after its 2008 merger, including as it relates to Pandora and the connected vehicle business. Barry previously served as senior vice president and controller and as chief accounting officer at the company.
“Tom is an experienced leader who has played a key role on SiriusXM’s finance team for the last fourteen years and … (who) has deep insight into our business and SiriusXM’s strategic, operating and financial priorities,” Jennifer Witz, SiriusXM’s chief executive officer said in the statement.
SiriusXM will report its first quarter 20203 financial results on April 27.
SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz said on Tuesday that the company’s recent job cuts were difficult but “the right thing to do” as the business grapples with lower ad sales, a still-delayed recovery in automotive subscription business and major investments in its technology.
SiriusXM announced this week it was letting go of 475 employees, or roughly 8% of its workforce, which totaled 5,869 employees as of Dec. 31, 2022.
“It’s really tough to see the number of talented employees leaving the business,” Witz said Tuesday at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley. “It was the right thing to do for the business. We absolutely want to make sure we’re disciplined. We will operate much more efficiently going forward and that’s going to give us even more flexibility to invest where we need to to build out this platform and generate future growth.”
Among the employees impacted were Steve Leeds, vice president of talent and industry and a 17-year veteran of the company who developed SiriusXM’s artist branded stations like E Street Radio and recruited talent like Lou Reed and Marshall Chess; and Roger Coletti, senior director and executive producer talk programming who, during his eight years at SiriusXM, helped create Volume, SiriusXM’s talk radio channel dedicated to music topics.
SiriusXM is the latest in a long list of companies in technology, consumer products and other industries to announce it was cutting its workforce and operating leaner due to the uncertain economic climate. Layoff.fyi, a website tracking job cuts in the technology sector, estimates more than 126,000 employees have been let go from tech company jobs so far in 2023, compared to 161,000 employees let go in all of 2022.
Witz, a former Viacom executive who has been with SiriusXM since 2002, said the company has been reviewing areas to reduce costs since the middle of last year. It made cuts to new hiring, content development, discretionary marketing and the company’s real estate footprint, but ultimately prepared to reduce staff as ad sales slowed in December.
“Advertising is definitely a headwind,” Witz said. “That’s 20% of our revenue… And subscriber volume — we expect this to be modestly negative. The auto sales, we haven’t seen a recovery materialize. The first quarter is going to be tough.”
Witz said that operating with a leaner workforce will enable the company to capitalize on growth opportunities she sees in automotive subscriptions at the high end, where customers pay as much as $35 per month.
SiriusXM reaches roughly 150 million listeners across its divisions, including 34.3 million Sirius XM subscribers, 6.2 million Pandora subscribers, and podcasts, according to the company’s most recent annual report.
SiriusXM’s core product — satellite subscription radio programs — have historically been consumed in cars, with SiriusXM radios available in about 152 million vehicles, as of Dec. 31, 2022, according to filings.
As the company looks to smart speakers and other connected devices to expand its reach to consumers, it is also expanding it content offering and prioritizing podcasting.
“We do see a bright spot in podcasting,” Witz said.
SiriusXM told workers on Monday it is letting go of 475 employees, or roughly 8% of the company’s workforce, as it works to reduce expenses and invest in new technology, the company’s CEO said in a memo to staff.
“It is critical for us to take the right steps now to secure the long-term health and profitability of our business,” SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz wrote in an internal memo. “Investments we are making in the business this year, coupled with today’s uncertain economic environment, require us to think differently about how our organization is structured.”
The satellite radio company said it was exploring job cuts last November to deal with how a worsening economic outlook is impacting demand for ads and other areas of its business. The staff reductions announced Monday place SiriusXM alongside Apple, Microsoft, Spotify and Alphabet as companies that have announced layoffs in 2023.
More than 123,000 employees have been let go from technology industry jobs so far in 2023, with most job cuts reported in January, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that track workforce reductions.
Last month, SiriusXM reported 2022 revenues grew by 4% to $9 billion, but Witz cautioned she expected a “a softer first half (of 2023) in terms of revenue … and subscriber growth” compared to last year.
The job cuts will hit nearly every department in the company, and employees who are being let go will start to receive notice today, Witz said, adding she is grateful for their work.
During Witz’s tenure as CEO, SiriusXM has hired about 1,500 new employees, bringing the company’s total headcount to just under 5,700, according to filings from 2022.
The company is in the process of updating the back-end technology and user-friendliness of its SiriusXM app, which Witz has said will enable the company to introduce new products to the app faster, a key part of the company’s growth strategy.
Sirius has also struggled in recent quarters with a slowdown in Pandora subscriber revenue and higher expenses from investments in podcasting and technology.