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I found this on the web. Well worth a read for those interested in SIRI.

https://waterboyinvesting.substack.com/p/siriusxm-...

Many thanks, BD. Agree, piece is very interesting, insightful and well written. I’ve owned a few Liberty positions (ok returns) and just received the new SIRI shares (very small position).

The upside potential vs. further downside risk seems reasonable imo. PE-7.55, 4.27% yield, & Ted has great insight into this sector and he’s scooping up more shares. Excerpt:

“The company should produce around ~$5.5 of FCF until 2028: $1.5B dividends, $2.5B buybacks, and $1.5 debt repayments; the investment is attractive solely on the premise modest growth and capital returns, and if multiple expansion occurs investors receive a “triple dip” (earnings growth + capital returns + multiple re-rate).”

Btw, we’ve used Sirius/XM (& the App) for decades (& the App in recent years). We really enjoy their various channels which they are always refreshing.

I do lean towards adding to the position and watching it play out, esp. with Street sentiment so one-sided. Please share if you are adding. Thanks again!

We got a Sirius for the car at 5PM at a Love's truck stop on I-40 on a trip from Denver to Chicago, late 1990's. At my wife's insistence. She said she could not stand me changing the station on the radio every time a commercial came on or when the signal got weak. For some reason it drove her crazy.

Had to call on the flip phone at $0.25/minute to get it activated before she would let me leave the gas station. The guy kept going thru his script trying to upsell me.

Now we live in a mountainous area and the OTA stations drop out 3 times between the house and town. So we kept the SiriusXM in the car.

Also, now being retired we don't drive the car much, but listen to SXM streaming on an Amazon Dot at home.

Also, now being retired we don't drive the car much, but listen to SXM streaming on an Amazon Dot at home.

Luv it! I do the same. Bought a new Civic last year but didn’t have SIRIUS pre-installed like it was in my previous Accord — that’s really the only thing I don’t like about my new Civic. But, I just plug my Iphone into the USB port, and stream from the app, while also doing double duty by monitoring my driving via the USAA app. I scored their max 30% discount for being a good boy on the roads this past year, yielding another $300 in savings upon renewal.

SIRIUS is actually the catalyst that motivated me to cut the cord and rid myself of all paid cable/streaming TV. It took awhile to wean myself off the addiction of pricey subscriptions, because I simply found it too unpalatable to give up the handful of channels that I watch every day, mainly news, sports, documentaries, and oldies. When I started playing around on my ROKU, I discovered all the free content from their channel and other downloaded apps/tiles, much of which I was already paying upwards of a couple thousand dollars per year in cable subscriptions. Fun fact — all the wonderful baby boomer shows and movies that I grew up on from the golden age of television, that I still watch endlessly, and was all part of my expensive cable bill, are free to stream virtually everwhere else.

So, I decided to just bite the bullet, and ended my crack addiction à la John Lennon - Cold Turkey — and I have never looked back. Like you, the beautiful thing about the Sirius echo dot integration is that I can still catch up with all the cable news and financial commentary around the house on audio while doing errands, without having to stare at the talking heads on CNBC. Or, at night, I can cast the SIRIUS app and its audio on my TV before going to sleep. And the sports thing which is a must have for me? Well, some young Gen Z guy at a sports bar one night gave me a tip about crack-streams…I actually thought he was on crack and this was all too good to be true, but nope…when I got home and tried it, it was one of the best leads I ever got for free entertainment. Now, I can watch all of the Celtics, Bruins, Patriots and Red Sox games for free on my iPad.

So, after getting back all the stuff that I like to listen to and watch, what did it finally cost me? First, I now pay $25 for my high speed internet. After bidding them goodbye after ripping me off on rising cable fees year after year, I threatened to leave Xfinity entirely if they didn't offer me the deal of the century for their internet. Ditto for the folks at Sirius. I got tired of their mandatory auto-renewal policy every year, which requires a phone call if you want to terminate or haggle with them to keep the original promo offer instead up sucking up the significant rate increase. This time, they knew I was coming loaded for bear, so instead of the heavy handed upsell pitch, they just cut to the chase and said we're giving you the same offer for the next year — 4 dollars and change per month, plus tax. Anything else sir? Nope! Good! Phone call was over in less than 5 minutes. While I was at it, by kicking my addiction, I also got rid of the expensive phone subscription a couple years ago - the no frills Mint Mobile (now merged with T-Mobile) has been giving me unlimited text and voice for only 15 bucks per month. I believe Canada and Mexico are included for coverage. Service is excellent and no dropped calls. For fifteen bucks, that's only 5g in data, but I'm in an urban area with lots of wifi, so, I don't have the need for lot’s of data. I have yet to go over, and usually have a gig or two leftover. More data can be purchased for very modest increases in the monthly subscription. It’s competitive I’m sure with other carriers.

All in all, my entertainment diet has paid off in extra $$ which I can now use for my wining and dining addiction. That's another diet I need to work on! 😂😂

There is a business opportunity here. I need someone like jetjockey to go through all our subscriptions and contracts and clean up the mess.

There is a business opportunity here. I need someone like jetjockey to go through all our subscriptions and contracts and clean up the mess.

It’s not hard…just good ol’fashioned bargaining. Put on your poker face, and when you call, just ask to cancel. If they’re doing their job, they will up channel you to “retention.” That’s where the rubber meets the road. They are more skilled and polished at that level, and will take a moment to listen to your concerns. I don’t ever let them launch into another sales pitch or upsell. I calmly state exactly what I want, and if they won’t concede, I’ll simply tell them to cancel immediately. Usually it works, but BE PREPARED TO FOLLOW THROUGH, if they call your bluff. In the case of Sirius, I have walked before, only to get a followup offer in a week or two that was exactly what I wanted or better. It’s not like losing your internet. I can do without Sirius for a short period of time, because, invariably, they will come right back at you, knocking at the door with an offer that is too good to turn down.

What I should have done in my previous message was to tie my story about penny pinching and shredding of my subscriptions back to BRK. Essentially, I think Ted is really on to something. I’m just one anecdoctal data point, but my experience at age 70 illustrates that I’m part of that targeted aging demographic that he sees as central in his analysis. Like the apple eco-system, which is inextricably linked across 3 devices in my life, I have now concluded that my Sirius subscription is something equally sticky, which I will probably never want to do without, unless the price rises substantially over time. I am not going back to FM radio with signal fadeout. At less than 5 bucks per month, the package is quite the deal, and loaded with all kinds of “on the go” content, much of which you may never even use. News, financial commentary, music, podcasts, etc..it’s all there. In contrast to the Bieber generation, seniors who don’t really care if they have the option or not to cherry pick a specific song can still setup endless channels to listen to their favorite genre of music. If you’re in a folk rock mood, there is Bob Dylan or Joan Baez channel. If you’re into classic rock, everything from the Beatles, Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Zeppelin, Beach Boys are available on separate channels dedicated to each artist, or simply add one of the many classic rock channels which covers all the bases. All I’m saying is that you get a helluva lot of stuff for a cheap price. You can place the Sirius app on different devices and stream in alternative ways: in the car, around the house, at the coffeehouse, or on TV before bedtime. I know that this streaming service is very sticky for me and will probably be around for a long time, however, at this cheap price, I don’t have a good feel for earnings growth and future FCF. It just seems like margins could really get squeezed at this price point.

I got tired of playing the "call just before the subscription expired and threaten to cancel" game a couple-three years ago, and the guy offer me a "special deal that only a few people get" for $7.99 (plus tax) a month permanently forever, no need to call ever again. Comes to $9.01/mo.

But now I'm not in the car very much, and for streaming at home we get Amazon, Pandora, and Spotify for free. And also Sirius has a pretty short song rotation, so they play the same songs 20 times a day. I have a 128MB flash drive plugged into the car with a few hundred hours of music, so I could get along without SiriusXM.

I'm just about ready to cancel the plan and insist on the $150 for 5 years deal.

The 5 year plan sounds like a good deal. For me, the sticky part is the news, with the music channels, sports, as nice extras. I do a lot of short trips around town, so I’m always groping to grab the latest headlines, especially these days. So, Fox, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc, are the majority of stations I’m listening to when I’m on the go. Before, all these channels were part of a pricey cable subscription for me. I couldn’t justify paying all that money when I’m basically just a news junkie — plus I love documentaries — most of which are free now on ROKU’s service.

I was inspired by Jetjockey787 to sort of explain my setup. I was "impressed" a number of years ago by an off-hand evaluation that many of my employees were spending as much as 20% of their salary (pre-tax) on phone/cableTV/internet, etc. and have always found the practice to be nuts.

Back in 2011 I decided to realign everything (never did have cable TV, but still had a land-line).

I was able to use an interface (just discontinued by the manufacturer, but mine is still functional) to attach my analog landline phone system to the internet. Then I ported my landline phone number to Google Voice (using a cell phone as an intermediate hop as they wouldn't transfer a traditional landline, but would a mobile phone number). SO, since then, I've still got the same landline phone number we've had for decades, my phones still ring thee same, have the same dial tone, I now even get text messages to my "landline" as well as voicemails as emails. Basically, I get everything and more - except a phone bill, as it is a free service.

My TV is received "over the air" and I think we get around 40 free channels (though, to be honest, I generally watch PBS (Public TV) which comes in on (at least) 8 different channels (we live on the top floor of a building in NYC).

My Mobile phone is on Google's Project Fi which charges $10 a GB (to a max of 4, I think and then its free, but I never get that high), so with taxes, other services, etc. brings the bill to an average of about $34 a month. The main advantage is that it functions in nearly every country (we spend 6-10 months a year wandering) at the same data cost and international roaming costs about $.10 a minute. My wife (who uses her phone as a Fitbit clone and the occasional call to me or the reverse) has been using a pre-paid T-Mobile SIM for years that we keep alive with an annual donation of $10 to her account.

And, like Jetjockey787, I hold an annual negotiation with my cable company (Optimum) for a high-speed internet connection at $25 a month (over which my newfangled VOIP "landline" is connected.

So, other than web-hosting costs (not part of the discussion), my datacom and TV costs run about $60 a month for international data/phone, internet, landline phone and TV (and standard AM/FM radio).

Jeff

I was able to use an interface (just discontinued by the manufacturer, but mine is still functional) to attach my analog landline phone system to the internet.

Curious if that's the Obitalk ATA? I used one for quite a few years but eventually just shifted to using Gvoice directly from my desktop, once it became clear that Obitalk would just stop working at an unpredictable time.

Gvoice is one of the few Google products that hasn't been thoroughly enshittified, "AI"-ed, and/or cancelled yet, so I'm sure it's coming. Unfortunate - if they actually sold the service, I'd even pay for it. The only real drawback I've found is that a lot of financial institutions will not send 2FA codes to Gvoice.

Probably is Obitalk.
It didn't stop working, it's just that they closed their online management portal down. I only used the portal when I first got mine. It was limited in what it could do. Okay for a non-tech user, I guess. You can completely manage the Obitalk device via its web interface. You can even set up distinctive ring tones, which is handy.

I got our first OBI200 in Mar 2020, and the 2nd in Dec 2020 as a spare in case the 1st one goes bad -- which it hasn't. On sale for $64.
Our ATT wireline phone was costing $49/mo. And it was at heart voip (on DSL) anyway.
I looked around for VOIP providers and signed up with voip.ms. Our phone bill now is about $3.75/mo, most of which is the 911 service.
The OBI200 supports 4 (four!) voip servers.
We have ours set up for voip.ms (primary), and Callcentric (outbound calling only), and GoogleVoice.

voip.ms has SMS support, so we now can get text messages which get forwarded to my email address. Most but not all financial institutions can send 2FA messages. Some will say "nope, we won't send 2FA to a voip phone number."

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