Sirius XM Holdings Inc (SIRI)

[curtofury]

Paullud is 100% correct. Sirius made a reactionary decision, and now we'll just have to see how it plays out.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/08/the-decision-to-fire-anthony-cumia-might-cost-siri.aspx

That's all either of us have been saying. Keep an open mind here & put personal feelings about the show aside or whether you think they are jerks. All that matters was that they had a huge audience, and that audience will largely follow them to the next platform.

Pre-merger days, O&A were hired by XM to anchor its talk content. Howard was hired by Sirius to do the same over there. Howard has a much bigger brand impact than O&A, that's indisputable.

Understand that both Stern & O&A now share the same fan base. And, when the companies merged, their fan bases overlapped, especially because Stern only does shows about 3 days/wk, and only 9 months a year. So you have whatever people who signed up for XM solely for O&A, PLUS, whoever they've culled from the Stern audience.

Those are the people who are most effected by this decision. It's a shame b/c none of this needed to happen, but so it goes.

Sirius will be fine in the long run, O&A will move on -- but O&A will bring their audience with them. The free market will dictate what happens next, but it's undeniable that this will have/is having an immediate, if not short-term, negative impact on Sirius.