It was back in November....of 2005. I remember sitting in my living room thinking about satellite radio, and the value proposition just didn't make sense to me. I wrote a post about it and figured it would never fly. Then in February 2006 I restated my belief that satellite radio was dead...they just didn't know it yet. That was February 18th, 2006 that I wrote that.
Fast forward almost exactly one year later to yesterday and what do we see...XM and Sirius are planning (hoping) to merge. Surprised? I'm not. How could a market support two players when there is no value proposition to end users?
Now the question is...if this merger goes through...will it be the saving moment for satellite radio? I say no. This was suppose to be the big threat to the iPod's dominance in the market which I never believed for a minute. Merging the companies together doesn't change the offering. If they want to gain marketshare, they need to offer something more compelling than just not hearing ads on specialty channels. If they put all their hope in the merger saving them, I'm afraid they'll fall short, again.
What does the merger really mean, if it goes through? Well, now instead of watching two companies flounder, we can just watch the one. My prediction, 12 - 18 months, and they'll be out of the market entirely unless something changes to their offering to the end consumer.
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