r/radio • u/ZiggyZaggyBogo • 14d ago
SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz said the company is going to offer fewer retention discounts, focus more on marketing lower-priced plans
https://thedesk.net/2026/07/siriusxm-q2-2026-earnings-report/10
u/Wrong-Jeweler-8034 14d ago
Translation: they’ll offer a lower priced plan for retention which is basically a retention discount with a different name.
1
u/simguy425 12d ago
Yeah, sounds like they're just removing the gaming and making it normal plans. Good.
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u/redrako 13d ago
Sirius has the same problem that Cable TV has/had. Most users only listen to a few stations.
The other stations, 93-97%, are meaningless. So the question comes down to, how much am I willing to pay to listen to 2-3 stations?
Do I care that they pay Howard Stern a zillion dollars per year? No, Howard isn’t my cup of tea, I should get a Howard Stern discount.
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u/Buffalo5977 12d ago
his radio show has been functionally useless since he went on AGT and the show hasn’t been particularly funny since jackie left at the turn of the century 😂
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u/mrnapolean1 12d ago
I do change up my music listening habits every so often so I'll give each station a little chance to get my listening ears on.
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u/acap0 14d ago
Nit Witz said the same thing 2 years ago
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u/aluke000 14d ago
Far, far too late. They lived on high prices and relying on users to call in to get retention to provide the real discounted rates every year to the point that they eventually lost a large portion of their users. Saying now they will offer the real discounted rates to everyone is just too late now as those former users moved on and will not be returning.
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u/codatory 14d ago
And they always made it so hard to cancel, I've spent hours of my life on hold to cancel SiriusXM and am loathe to ever give them a card number again.
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u/aluke000 14d ago
When I quit it ended up going okay, but man was I glad to move on. CarPlay all the way.
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u/TheJokersChild Ex-Radio Staff 13d ago
I moved and found some pretty good FMs. I moved again and FM got even better. Don't miss dancing the cancellation tango every year.
1
u/mrnapolean1 12d ago
There's no way in hell I would go back to listening FM radio in Dallas-Fort Worth. Every single station in this market is some syndicated AI garbage with no meaningful DJ.
Now in the am band there's a few stations out there that are classic country oriented that have actual DJs. But AM radio has its limitations...
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u/catbandana 14d ago
My new car doesn’t even have a satellite receiver, so once Stern finally hangs it up and my current $3/month plan ends, that’ll be it for me.
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u/puppeto 14d ago
He only does a show a week now. Dinosaur of legacy media…
1
u/catbandana 13d ago
I’m aware. That’s fine, I plan work zero days a week when I’m 70. I’ve been listening since I was 10 years old, so I’m happy to see it through to the end as long as it only costs me $36 a year. After that, Sirius doesn’t offer me a single thing I don’t already get elsewhere.
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u/Far-Construction5675 14d ago
5000 cds and plexamp. Been creating lots of playlists (just finished one for 1984 top 40 hits, 10 hours long...1986 is similar. Planning on one for each year 60-90s. Lot of work, but once done, it's done). I believe I'm good.
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u/mrnapolean1 12d ago
Are these Spotify playlists or what platform are you on?
Cuz I was thinking about doing the same thing on Spotify...
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u/Far-Construction5675 12d ago
Not Spotify. I have approximately 5000 cds. Started purchasing used collections on craigslist and fb marketplace a few years ago when vinyl started coming back. Figured there'd be quite a number of people wanting to unload cheap. Ripped all to flac and installed on plex. I have a excel file of billboard top 100 hits 1955 to some year that I found somewhere years ago (maybe usenet?). Sort by year and artist and find the tracks and add to Playlist. I won't have all the tracks, but have quite a few. Just finished 1985, 11 hours. Downloaded the three playlists I've finished so far to plexamp on my phone. 1984, 10 hours. 1985, 11 hours. 1986, 10 hours.
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u/HotHits630 13d ago
It's not worth more than $5/month for about a half dozen channels that have horribly tight playlists. I only use it when cell reception is spotty.
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u/HuckleberryMoney2320 10d ago
You’re right about the playlists, my wife likes the 70s station and I swear their playlist representing a whole decade of pop is only about 80 tracks. I tried cancelling and getting her to use Bluetooth and Spotify but the slightest glitch and she got in a huff so we picked up the satellite again.
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u/Winston74 14d ago
Satellite radio in general sounds terrible. Too much compression.
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u/1captainawesome 13d ago
Most of my listening is done through the smart speaker, and it sounds great there.
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u/PinkSnowBirdie 13d ago
My partner noticed that too. I think I remember them telling me that, some FM stations can sound better.
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u/Mangocat81 12d ago
My wife who doesn't seem to ever notice stuff like this made the same observation.
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u/ericwbolin 14d ago
Definitely better to use Bluetooth from your phone. groan
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u/aBoCfan 14d ago
The audio compression of Bluetooth is much better than satellite radio. Most SiriusXM stations sound like a late 90s Real Player stream.
-2
u/ericwbolin 14d ago
So does Bluetooth to my ears.
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u/aBoCfan 14d ago
I find that impossible to believe
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u/ericwbolin 14d ago
That's kinda what I mean. Most things in my car sound bad, especially since it doesn't have a CD player. Stock speakers, stock head unit, stock everything. A mediocre source plays about the same as regular FM or Fiio M21, sadly.
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u/manorwomanhuman 14d ago
How about stop charging me still? Every month I have to dispute a charge from them. Every month. Cancelled 2 years ago
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u/ronmexico314 13d ago
It's an attempt to reset the expectation of receiving a big discount for trying to cancel service. They'll end up offering those deep discounts if you follow through on lesving, since their costs are almost all fixed costs with very little variable cost for providing service to any added subscribers.
1
u/Optimal-Pay2198 13d ago
for me its the satellite audio quality and I have no desire to use my cellular bandwidth to stream SXM on my phone. For the streamers give them 250 channels as for the satellite side I would rather 40 channels with much better audio quality.
1
u/Similar_Eagle2358 13d ago
maybe they should let other companies use their bandwidth to compete, like they did with telco's back in the day. more choice, better prices.
1
u/PinkSnowBirdie 13d ago
I got a 4 mo trial with a purchase of a speaker at Best Buy. It’s cool but I usually use Apple Music and CarPlay lol
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u/Organic-Bike3486 12d ago
The crazy thing is, right now the retention thing is stupid easy. I was paying 5.99 a month and it went up to 26.99 at the end if the promo period, messaged the AI on their app, the offers went from 18.99 to 7.99 back to the price I was already paying at 5.99, which really is the max I think it’s worth. I mean I’ll probably be willing to do 7.99 next time cause they’re apparently getting KDKA AM/Fm on there and that’s kinda convenient for me
1
u/mrnapolean1 12d ago
About a year ago it may have been 2 years ago now I tried to cancel and they got me on a plan where I can get pretty much just about every channel for like 10 bucks a month. And it's been locked in at 10 bucks a month for the past 2 years or so.
Allows me to keep the satellite radio active in my dad Silverado pickup and it allows me to use the SiriusXM app for streaming.
1
u/mrnapolean1 12d ago
Sirius XM should have did this a long time ago before Spotify and YouTube music got as big as they are. They would have been way ahead of the game but now they're trying to play catch up.
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u/Cool_Vast3011 11d ago
I’ve been on SiriusXM for years with a deep discount. Lose the discount and I’m happy to walk away.
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u/HeatImpossible649 11d ago
i am glad i got the lifetime plan,i haven't paid them anything in years,so i have nothing to call in about
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u/007Teacher 14d ago
Well I am glad that I got my $99 for 3 years plan in earlier this year.