During its Q2 2024 earnings call, SiriusXM announced a seismic shift in the company’s subscription model that could reshape the audio battle for the car dashboard. As it tries to gain ground against AM/FM and streaming competition, SiriusXM has launched an ad-supported, in-car subscription plan it calls Free Access.
The Free Access plan will incorporate advertisements on a selection of music, talk, sports, and comedy channels, and can be subscribed to via a vehicle’s dashboard without providing any financial information. However, there are a few major catches in the system.
Free Access only works with vehicles that include SiriusXM’s 360L hybrid radios and is currently invitation-only. 360L-supported radios are currently available in a limited, but expanding, range of vehicles from Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Ford, Dodge, Subaru, Volvo, and Nissan. The subscription also only stays on one vehicle and can’t be transferred from car to car or provide listening access through SiriusXM’s mobile app.
And then there’s the most significant caveat: to maintain the subscription, users must use the service at least once every 60 days. Failure to do so will result in an automatic – and permanent – deactivation of the service.
SiriusXM Free Access comes as the company struggles with subscriber growth and getting its product in front of more, and particularly younger, ears. Edison Research’s latest Share of Ear shows that in the past decade, the satellite broadcaster has only gained 1% of listening time among Americans 13+. The platform (8%) lags behind AM/FM (36%), Streaming Music (20%), and now YouTube (14%) and podcasts (10%).
In the second quarter of 2024, SiriusXM’s self-pay subscribers fell by 100,000, with an increase in vehicle-related churn and a decline in streaming additions. The number of paid promotional subscribers dropped by 73,000, mainly because automakers opted for unpaid trial subscriptions. The total number of trial subscribers was 7.4 million, a minor decrease from 7.5 million in both the previous quarter and the same quarter the previous year.
I’d much rather listen to my local/regional AM/FM stations and my streaming stations any say over the offerings given by satellite radio.The audio quality and the product offered by satellite radio is terrible and unlistenable.
If the channels were indeed free, they would be free to all users regardless of the type of satellite radio that you own, there would be no use it or lose it stipulation and you surely wouldn’t have to “subscribe” so that the satellite operator can spam you to death and sell your information to other companies.
Nice try Sirius/XM but no dice!
I called this over 20 years ago. Nobody wants to pay for radio. It’s not sustainable. If they were smart, they would have done this from the beginning, put the MAJORITY of their most popular channels on the free side, then only charged subscription fees for the hardcore listeners who want a specific niche thing (like Howard Stern or Conan O’Brien, deep cut music channels, topic-specific talk channels, that sort of stuff).
Then again, if they were smart, they also would have done all of this ONLINE and NOT via satellite. Satellite technology is ridiculously more expensive. Yes, they offer streaming through their app, as well, but that came later, and it’s still secondary to their satellite service. Spotify and the other streaming services (iHeart was late to the game because Cheap Channel was stupid about it, but they still beat Sirius to it) figured this out long before: go where the people already are.
Yes. Just more Corporate BS. Channels and channels of meaninglessness.
Corporate boring radio. Bring back the local independent stations with all of their creativity.
Sad, but those days are gone. Sirius is not the answer.
Sirius has absolutely no idea what they are doing. None. The announcers on Seventies for example just babble on with absolutely meaningless talk. They are not disciplined, not prepared, and just can’t shut up. Sirius promotions are a joke- many of them have just 1 winner, with millions of listeners. Give me a break.
Don’t listen. Problem solved.
Done.