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With over $2 billion in debt, the unified satellite radio company Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) XM (NSDQ: XMSR) already had plenty of challenges before the credit markets tightened up these past few weeks. But CEO Mel Karmazin tried to steer things into the bright future instead of the darkening present. In a Q&A with Mediaweek’s Katy Bachman at the Dow Jones/Nielsen Media and Money Conference in New York, Karmazin pleaded for some time to get the company’s finances in order, as he boasted of Sirius XM’s strengths even in an economic downturn. -- The future is bright: Karmazin: The fact is that it will take satellite time to get to free cash flow; look how long it took cable. The equity in the company is worth $1 billion. On one hand, you have a company that has grown over a period of time. We’ve gone from $67 million to $2.4 billion in revenue by the end of the year. The companies that get rewarded today have a great balance sheet. That’s not us today, but that’s us in the future. As for the debt, Karmazin said: “We’re engaged in discussions [our lenders]. I believe we’ll be able to refinance it, even in this market.” -- Even if Detroit loses, we still win: We’re a subscription business. About 96 percent of our business comes from that. the largest driver is when you go out an buy a new car, every car company has committed to putting it. Next year, we’ll have 50 percent penetration. There are about 17 million new cars produced a year. That number will be 13 million next year. If there are only 12 million cars sold, no one as forecast that, but even if the worst happens, 6 million will leave the assembly line with satellite radio. And our surveys show that 50 percent of the people who are offered satellite with their new car, take it. That will get us to $300 million revenue growth even if Detroit has a very bad year. Even in a market where cars are not doing well, we can still feel successful. -- Content syndication: Sirius XM had talks about syndicating its content to terrestrial radio stations and networks. But Karmazin takes a dim view of these deals, noting that they tend to undercut Sirius XM’s existence as a subscription service. “Why would they pay $12.95? It’s because they can’t get it anywhere else. We have 65 commercial free music channels. If you want to listen to something on terrestrial radio, you have to pay by listening to commercials. Our model is different. It would also hurt the brand to produce content that would have to conform to FCC standards. I will honor some agreements we have made. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to do more syndication deals.”

Ok, so who knows if it will last but the greenscape on our ContentNextDex is a lovely sight this morning after the week from hell. Fewer then 15 stocks in the red and the market’s been open for two hours. Some of the gainers from the early morning rally: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is back up over $100 --up 7.4 percent to $103 now, although a dip from the opening; Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) is up slightly to $12.93 (a sign of how low the stock is—a 56-cent move equals a 4.6 percent rise); McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), up 12.4 percent to $24.52; Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is up 6.8 percent but at $354.72, nowhere near $400. Several stocks are hovering around zero: ZVUE, Journal Register (OTCBB: JRCO), GoFish (OTCBB: GOFH), while Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) and Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) XM (NSDQ: XMSR) are well under a dollar. Updated: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride will pick up speed again Tuesday morning but today’s session ended with fewer than 10 ContentNextDex stocks in the red—hard to believe given the last eight sessions. The ContentNextDex closed up 10.65 percent. The Dow set a record for a one-day gain, closing up 936 points and back in the 9,000 range at 9388; as MarketWatch notes, the only member of the DJIA in the red was GE. Nasdaq jumped 11 percent.

Ok, so who knows if it will last but the greenscape on our ContentNextDex is a lovely sight this morning after the week from hell. Fewer then 15 stocks in the red and the market’s been open for two hours. Some of the gainers from the early morning rally: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is back up over $100 --up 7.4 percent to $103 now, although a dip from the opening; Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) is up slightly to $12.93 (a sign of how low the stock is—a 56-cent move equals a 4.6 percent rise); McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), up 12.4 percent to $24.52; Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is up 6.8 percent but at $354.72, nowhere near $400. Several stocks are hovering around zero: ZVUE, Journal Register (OTCBB: JRCO), GoFish (OTCBB: GOFH), while Jupitermedia (NSDQ: JUPM) and Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) XM (NSDQ: XMSR) are well under a dollar.

Howard Stern stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars through his move to Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) from *CBS* Radio but what has he lost? Millions of listeners—and with them, relevance and influence, contends the LA Times. The exploits and the FCC battles that made him famous and kept him in the news are in the past. LAT: “So far, the radio personality’s leap from traditional media to a niche platform has come at a heavy price—namely, cultural relevancy. Unlike an Arianna Huffington, who vastly increased her reach on her upstart website, Stern’s place in the national conversation has been reduced to a murmur in the din of the exploding entertainment universe.” Then again, Huffington’s upstart site is free and Stern’s audience is subscription. It’s also loyal. The Sirius-XM (NSDQ: XMSR) Radio merger expands his potential audience to about 19 million but in a way that’s reminiscent of cable networks available in 70 million homes with only a fraction of those ever tuning in. Analysts peg his audience no higher than 2 million but Sirius says those figures are low. Sirius subscribers get Stern on satellite radio and internet radio as part of the full $12.95 package; as of last week, XM subscribers can add the show, which hasn’t changed all that much by most accounts, for $4. What has changed? The LAT says the quality of Stern’s guests: “With a reduced audience, Stern’s show is no longer a prime stop on the major film promotion circuit. And the A-list guests who used to submit to Stern’s biting personal questions in order to hype their projects have become scarce.” He’s also missing the sense of controversy stirred up by the fights with the FCC. Stern is under contract to Sirius through 2010. Would he switch back? Maybe, but as talk-radio host Tom Leykis told the paper: “Even if he does have a smaller audience in terms of his cumulative audience, that won’t last forever. Terrestrial radio is hemorrhaging audience as it tries to find its place in the Digital Age, while satellite is up tremendously.”

It did not get a lot of fanfare in analyst reports, nor did it seem to be a huge topic of discussion, but the new GM deal means a lot to Sirius XM Radio. To fully grasp this, we need to go back in time to when the GM deal was first struck. When XM Satellite Radio reached a deal with General Motors, it was a big win for satellite radio in terms of “getting onto the map”. It was the GM deal that paved the way for other OEM’s to follow suit. In many ways, the success of satellite radio happened because of that deal. That being said, it turned out to be a quite expensive deal for XM satellite radio, and now the merged Sirius XM. At that time, XM Satellite Radio was not 100% commercial free music. The price of a subscription[More...]

It is with great distress that I put pen to paper, or in this case fingers to keyboard. Sometimes people believe that SiriusBuzz is SiriusPump. Nothing could be further from the truth and the buzz right now, is chapter 11. In a filing with the SEC, Sirius XM states: In the event such uncertainties remain unresolved, management anticipates that KPMG LLP’s auditors’ report relative to the Company’s 2008 consolidated financial statements will contain an explanatory paragraph indicating substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. … the inclusion of such a paragraph by KPMG LLP would result in a default under certain indebtedness of the Company, XM Holdings and XM Satellite Radio Inc. (“XM Inc.”) which defaults, if not cured or waived prior to the expiration of the applicable grace period, would result in an event[More...]

Dish Network Corporation (Nasdaq: DISH), a provider of television service to approximately 13.678 million satellite TV customers across the US, lost its battle to gain control in Sirius XM Radio[More...]

It is not the February debt that made the news today, but rather some of the XM debt from December of this year. SIRIUS XM Radio announced that XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., its wholly-owned subsidiary, had exchanged approximately $172.5 million aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 10% Convertible Senior Notes due December 2009 for a like principal amount of its newly issued Senior Secured Notes due 2011. An aggregate of $400 million in principal amount of the 10% Convertible Senior Notes due December 2009 was outstanding prior to this transaction. In simple terms: 1. There was $400 million in debt that was due in December of this year. 2. The company exchanged $172.5 million of the debt thereby extending the due date until 2011. 3. The new notes also went from senior convertible to senior secured (gives the holder more security). 4. $227.5 million worth of the[More...]

I remember hearing all about how wonderful the Sirius/XM Satellite Radio merger was and how you should be buying stock and especially that you should buy because price was around $2.00 or $3.00 and if price moved just a little bit to $4.00 or $6.00 that you would double your money, not to mention if it got up to $10.00 or $20.00 over time.  However, that never happened - in fact, the opposite happened, which underscores a major point in trading.  DO NOT buy a stock only because it is cheap.  It might be ok to buy a cheap stock, but price should not be your #1 motivating (or heaven forbid ONLY) factor. Let’s see this play out in SIRI. <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/3239612102_754b2abc09_o.png" alt="SIRI Sirius" width="520" height="330"[More...]

Schaeffer's Laura Houser takes a look at activity on the Street after the market close

Schaeffer's Laura Houser takes a look at activity on the Street ahead of the market open

Schaeffer's Laura Houser takes a look at today's options activity

Schaeffer's Laura Houser takes a look at activity on the Street after the market close

Schaeffer's Laura Houser takes a look at activity on the Street ahead of the market open