The ONLY thing keeping them afloat right now are deals with high-profile comedians and pro sports. Period. And they have to pay those folks boatloads of money to play at all.
Of all the people I know and have met that listen to Sirius/XM, a very small amount listen to the talk and sports stations primarily. It's possible that I have a bad representative sampling, but I don't think that is the case. Lose the high cost deals with the talk show people and then maybe the expenses will be a bit more manageable. Or maybe some of these high cost 'personalities' will have to work for less - one of the good sides of less competition. For the ones who can't or won't go back to FM, what other options do they have?
They need to realize that most of us subscribe for literally a handful of stations, and if you screw with them, we get pissed.
This right here. I listen to ONE station primarily, have a secondary backup that is about half as enjoyable for me, and then dance around a handful of others when there's something on the first two I'm not in the mood for. They really need to learn to stop fucking with the music stations, every one that gets axed is that potential ONE station for thousands of subscribers. I know for a fact that if my primary station got the axe, my subscriptions (yes, plural) go as well, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way about 'their' stations.
"I am, therefore I am." -- Akira