Ha ha! I love it! Talk about having some impact on the internet!

As for the topic itself, no Howard Stern is not on vacation this week. Granted, I can understand why some fans feel the need to have the internet confirm this for them – I mean the man and his crew seem to take off every other week. Show producer Gary Dell’Abate claims that the crew gets 10 weeks of vacation every year. I don’t know about that – it certainly seems like they take off a great deal more time than that each year, especially when you consider that they get off every Friday and holidays in addition to those 10 weeks.

I think that it’s for reasons like this that Sirius XM subscribers and Howard Stern fans get frustrated when Stern talks about how he’s exhausted and he wants to hang it up when his contract is up. Sure, as a stockholder I want to see Howard stick around because I think it helps the brand. However, as a fan of the show I don’t want to hear about how this guy is tired and exhausted all of the time. He is on air at most for 20 hours each week (not including commercial and not-live-content breaks). Some folks out there do that much work in 2 days. Stern and the on-air talent do it in 4. That’s not a bad gig.

Anyway, the point of the post is that while Howard and his team go on vacation way too much as it is, they are not on vacation this week. Labor Day seems to have fooled some people.

Thirty-five years ago, the F.D.A. did annual inspections of about half of the nation’s food-processing facilities. Last year, the agency inspected just 7,000 of the nearly 150,000 domestic food facilities, and its oversight of foreign plants, which provide a growing share of the nation’s food supply, is even more spotty.

Experts have long debated whether the F.D.A. should increase inspections or rely instead on private auditors and more detailed safety rules. By calling the limited number of government inspections an “unacceptable” public health hazard, Mr. Obama came down squarely on the side of increased government inspections.

These pieces of information – garnered from a recent New York Times article – show just how low America’s food safety standards have become. We’ve gone from inspecting 50% of the nation’s food processing facilities to inspecting just 4.6%. Come on. That’s clearly not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination.

And what do you get from this type of lackadaisical approach to food safety? Well, for one, you get the gigantic peanut recall that the country is now experiencing. The New York Times article also commented that some, “76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die.” That’s no joke. Hey – I was one of the people who got food poisoning over the last year, too.

I hope that President Obama radically alters our current food safety system. If you’re interested in getting better quality food as a government mandate, think about sending your own message to President Obama</a> on this topic.

As the article linked above puts it:

The money-losing home of Howard Stern, Opie & Anthony and the NFL got a $530 million investment from John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. that will keep Sirius XM out of bankruptcy. Shares of the New York-based company are soaring.

Malone is demanding a steep price in exchange for bailing out Sirius XM. Liberty will provide a senior secured loan of $280 million which matures in 2012 at an interest rate of 15 percent. Sirius XM, though, may have had little choice but to accept such a high interest rate because it had $171.6 million of its maturing 2 1/2 percent notes due Feb 17. Even with today’s huge run up, Sirius shares are down more than 94 percent over the past year.

In the second phase of the investment, Liberty will provide a $150 million loan and to buy $100 million in loans issued to XM Satellite Radio. The company will then issue Liberty 12.5 million shares of preferred stock which is convertible into 40 percent of the common equity. Malone and Liberty CEO Greg Maffei will join the board of the satellite radio company.

I take issue with the article’s use of “money-losing” as an adjective to describe Sirius XM. If you look at the figures, Sirius was on the brink of making money before it acquired XM and their unbelievable debt load. At this point, though, that doesn’t mean much since there is only one company – Sirius XM.

Since the deal was finalized, many online media sources have commented on it with varying levels of support (or contention). The New York Times’ DealBook blog, for example, looked at the Form 8-K filed for the transaction and proceeded to tear into the particulars of the deal (which are admittedly not the greatest). After the Times posted their review of the 8-K, stock prices for the company began to sink. In terms of real dollars (cents?), the stock price was at 18 cents before the Times posted their review. The stock price is now at 12 cents.

For months I’ve been harping about how Sirius XM is a great niche product for those who have extra long commutes and those who want special content like Howard Stern. The company is also poised for success in the long-term as it has some 20 million subscribers paying generally $13 per month for their service. That’s approximately $260 million per month; over $3 billion per year. Of course there are costs that have to be deducted from that $3 billion figure each year, but over time that built-in revenue base is a gold mine.

I have to wonder, though, if Sirius XM will be able to succeed in the long run with the way the internet media continues to lambaste and destroy it. The Motley Fool has it out for the company and it would appear that the would revel in its failure. And with the way the New York Times’ DealBook blog is listened to by investors, you have to wonder how many more negative reports the company can withstand in the current market.

Yet, whenever I check what the online financial media is saying about Sirius XM, I always find that the loudest negative voices are spewing from the Motley Fool website. I have no problem with an analyst saying that a stock is not worth buying (at this point, unless you’re a long-term investor I wouldn’t suggest buying Sirius XM either), but the group at Motley Fool is viciously against this radio company and I can’t figure out why? Maybe a bunch of their writers got burned on the stock – who knows?

The latest article was posted up on MSNBC’s website and it talked about how Sirius XM is the worst stock of 2009. Bear in mind that 2009 isn’t even a month old yet! What bothers me, though, is the complete one-sided opinions that they put out there and the implied stance that their ideas are obviously applicable to the rest of the country. An example:

Satellite-radio competes for my ears with my Apple iPod and its dedicated car jack, my custom-burned CDs, and with a host of new mobile applications, including Ford and Microsoft’s Sync. And with other automakers experimenting with putting routers in their cars that could stream free Internet radio, Sirius’ competition for luxury dollars is increasing.

And satellite radio is very much a luxury. A past subscriber myself, I found my use waning in the months following a cross-country trip. As use fell, I found defending the monthly cost difficult — and that was before the economy cratered, when luxury spending was easier to justify.

First, just because your ears have multiple listening options, that doesn’t apply to everyone. I’m glad that you can afford a car with a dedicated jack for your iPod. I – and a great deal of Americans who are struggling in the current economy – cannot afford this luxury. Second, I’m glad that your new, expensive car has either a router or Ford/Microsoft’s Sync program. The 2000 Civic that my Mom just gave me doesn’t have those options. Neither did the 1999 Chevy Blazer that I donate to charity at the beginning of the month. Maybe the next used car that I buy will have a fancy feature or two, but again – the vast majority of Americans can’t afford these cars with all of these bells and whistles that you apparently can afford.

Need proof? Isn’t the domestic car industry in the crapper? Exactly.

It’s a shame that this writer’s cross-country trip is used as one of the driving factors in his purchase of Sirius XM. That was his dumb choice. For me – someone who drives more than two hours per day – I enjoy the variety that I get from Sirius XM. Sure, sometimes the lack of original content on Howard Stern pisses me off and yes, even with dozens and dozens of commercial-free music channels there is sometimes nothing to listen to, but that’s no different than cable television with hundreds of channels with nothing to watch!

For me, Sirius XM is the perfect companion during my daily commute and drives around the state. It’s also nice to turn it on in the office and be able to listen to commercial-free music. For some people, Sirius XM isn’t right.

However, as a shareholder I have a serious problem with Motley Fool publishing around 10 negative articles on Sirius XM this month alone. That’s ridiculous and an obvious show of bias. I wouldn’t care what Motley Fool does with their webspace, except that Google Finance uses their updates in their news feed so every few days I get another death story from these bias folks. If the rest of Sirius XM‘s investors are getting the same reports, then what does anyone expect besides a huge sell off?

If this company dies, it will be in no small part thanks to the one-sided, arrogant comments by online groups like Motley Fool.

As a shareholder, I’m completely in favor of Sirius XM raising their rates because I know that the company has a series of “financing events” coming up this year where billions in existing debt need to be refinanced. The company is working hard to strategically position itself for the coming years so that it is a streamlined company that continues to grow and generate revenue, but this has been a tricky process.

Towards the end of last year, many of the niche music channels that Sirius XM listeners grew accustomed to hearing were removed in favor of condensing the company’s offerings. This attempt to streamline its services by removing duplicate channels has generated mixed results. Some of the condensing made sense. For example, adding the 40’s on 4, 50’s on 5, 60’s on 6, 70’s on 7, 80’s on 8, and 90’s on 9 channels was the only logical move to make with the standard music channels. The same is true of the Sirius XM Love channel which plays love music all day. Having separate Sirius and XM channels for these standardized playlists is a waste of money.

On the other hand, when Sirius’ Back Spin Radio channel was replaced by XM’s Pop2K channel, the Back Spin fans went bonkers. Through a coordinated campaign, they successfully lobbied to get the Back Spin channel brought back to the Sirius XM line-up (fans of the Strobe channel did the same thing). Creating cost synergies makes sense, but so does listening to your fans.

Now, from my standpoint as a consumer of Sirius XM radio some of the pending price increases really piss me off. First, they are removing the free internet feed and adding a $3.00 monthly fee without increasing services. The company’s argument will be that they are upgrading the internet fee to the better, clearer 128k connection. Guess what? I don’t want the better connection! I’m perfectly okay with the lesser connection that I have now because it works fine!

My way around this fee, though, will be to NOT order the internet service and instead purchase a boombox for when I want to listen to Sirius XM in the house. Plus, with the boombox I can pause and rewind the radio because I’ll be using the unit that I have in my car. So take that!

Second, Sirius XM is increasing the additional account fee by $2.00 to $8.99 per additional account. In other words, if I have my master account paying $12.95 per month (that’s $13.86 per month with tax) and I want to add an additional radio to my account, instead of paying the $6.99 rate, I’ll now have to pay the $8.99 rate. For one extra radio, that brings my total monthly payment with tax to $23.48. If I was to throw in the internet radio on top of that, then my monthly payment with tax to $26.68. That’s too much for anyone to pay for a monthly convenience like satellite radio.

Third, I’m greatly concerned that Sirius XM is now finding ways to skirt around the government’s decree that it could not raise rates for the first three years it existed as a merged company. When approving the merger, the government said that basic rates could not be increased for three years. Well, if the basic internet rate was free, then isn’t charging $3.00 per month essentially raising the rate? And isn’t raising the additional radio rate by $2.00 per month essentially raising the rate? I don’t like it and I would imagine that other consumers won’t like this either.

And yet because of my daily commute and the amount of driving that I do, I still find the company well worth the $13.86 that I pay each month. But paying anything more than that? Well, frankly I don’t know if I could justify an additional expense for not getting an additional service.

However, as a committed shareholder I hope that you clicked on one of the links in this entry and purchased a product from Sirius XM! I truly think the company has great long-term potential – I just question whether squeezing more money out of its already committed subscriber base is the right way to realize additional income.

Some of you may remember when I blogged about CBS changing the format of 101.1 in New York City – the number one ranked oldies station. When CBS changed from the oldies format to some stupid “Jack-FM” concept (which was based on an iPod style – playing whatever they wanted to play), the station quickly tanked. Again, after realizing the error of their ways – and losing tons of advertising revenue – CBS Radio changed their minds and brought back the oldies format.

And now we have the latest blunder in the New Jersey/New York terrestrial radio meltdown. Press Communications, the owner of four stations in the Monmouth County/Ocean County area, have taken their G-Rock Radio Channel (106.3 FM) and changed it to now be called “Hit 106.” The name change isn’t the problem – it’s the format change. As described in the Asbury Park Press:

Less than a week after the Jersey Shore station WHTG (G-Rock) 106.3-FM switched from an alternative rock format to contemporary hits, a group calling itself “Bring Back G-Rock,” with a Facebook page, is planning a protest at noon Saturday outside the station’s studio at 2355 West Bangs Ave. in Neptune.

Press Communications, the owners of the station, made the switch at noon on Monday, to appeal to the 18 to 44 age range.

How stupid is this decision by Press Communications? If you live in the Jersey Shore area, you know that G-Rock was all over the place up and down the shore during the spring, summer, and fall seasons. They were a household name in terms of the radio world…and they’re rewarded for their excellent marketing and advertising by being taken off of the air? Who’s making these ridiculous decisions in the terrestrial radio world?!

I was glad to read that there is going to be a protest outside of the Press Communications building tomorrow. Though I can’t be there, I agree that G-Rock Radio should be brought back. Since I’ve picked up Sirius XM there have only been a few times that I’ve been forced to listen to old-fashioned, boring, censored radio. During those times the only stations that I listened to were G-Rock Radio and NJ 101.5-FM. This was a good channel and I guarantee that it’s a bigger money-maker (and crowd pleaser) than Hot 106.

Watch – taking G-Rock Radio off of the air will be one of the dumbest moves in Press Communications’ history.

As someone who spends a great deal of time in my car each week because of my job, I can tell you that the benefits of commercial-free music channels far outweigh the benefits of terrestrial radio (which is, essentially, the fact that it is free). I’m willing to spend $13 per month to listen to commercial free music for about two hours every day that I have to commute to and from work or travel around the state. Sure, some other commuters may not need this service and if I traveled a much shorter distance to work, then I might not have Sirius XM installed in my car.

But what bothers me in this situation is the rumor mongering that only takes into account what Stern said on one day. No one mentions that on the very next day he said that if he wasn’t on Sirius XM then he wouldn’t be in radio, period. So as a Sirius XM shareholder please forgive me if I want the full story out there and not just the negative sounding part.

I might as well get this out of the way – I own stock in Sirius XM, so I’m obviously a shill for the company now. Sure, in the past I would get pissed off at Howard Stern and his ridiculous vacation schedule, but the truth is that I travel so much that listening to old-fashioned terrestrial radio is a bore now that I’ve been exposed to Sirius XM. Sirius XM offers entertaining channels, commercial-free music, the best in sports coverage, and a cable-TV-like line-up if you’re looking for news coverage.

And that’s what makes the Sirius XM service so great for me. I drive about two hours each day in my daily commute. If I was listening to old-fashioned terrestrial radio, then I would spend a good portion of that commute listening to commercials; and not just any commercials – the cheesy ones that they create specifically for radio listeners to grab your attention. Talk about a shitty commute!

So put aside the fact that I own stock in this company and that I am now shamelessly shilling for you guys to sign-up for this service – Sirius XM is really a great product. For those of you who do research into the behind the scenes view of companies like Sirius XM then yes, there are some large talking points regarding the management and the company’s finances. But that has little to do with the service provided by Sirius XM. I’m happy to talk to anyone more about the Sirius XM service and why you might want to get one of your friends or a family member a subscription this Christmas season!

One of my friends made the comment the other day that you can tell in Howard’s voice how he doesn’t even want to be there any more and I couldn’t agree more. The shows have been lacking lately, though I will give him credit because every once in a long while he hits a home run (usually something that has to do with Artie and his disastrous health). There are a few issues that confuse me about Howard and his current deal, though…

For example, Sirius XM ran a promotion to get new subscribers this spring leading into the summer months where their announcer clearly said, “And you won’t want to miss Howard Stern this summer!” Really? We won’t want to miss Howard this summer? Because I’m pretty sure that he’s only worked like two or three, 4-day work weeks this summer (that’s 8 to 12 days).

Also, how can the higher-ups at Sirius XM justify the $100 million per year expense on this guy when he works such a reduced schedule? I understand that the $100 million is to be used for his channels in addition to his salary, but when the company is on the verge of losing a talent like Bubba the Love Sponge, you have to wonder why so much money is funneled into The Howard Stern Show when it clearly is not using the money correctly (why don’t their microphones ever work right the first time).

Speaking of money, don’t tell me that Stern isn’t bringing in a ton of excess income on his channels. Subscribers to this commercial-free service are treated to frequent 10 – 15 minute non-live content breaks during the show. In other words, we get propaganda from the Howard 100 News team, commercials, and full-length songs (which is incredibly insulting considering the dozens upon dozens of music channels that are truly commercial free). Some of that money can be spread around, you know.

Anyway, it’s ridiculous that Stern is floating by on a contract that is designed for someone to NOT float by. I hope Mel Karmazin reigns this guy in because with his current attitude, the ridiculous amount of commercials, and his current schedule, Stern may actually be hurting the satellite radio movement more than helping it.