Summary
- Back in the day, I was pretty hard on Sirius XM.
- I got sucked into the emotional battleground between Sirius XM and Pandora.
- The right call in the 2010-2018 time frame was to be bullish both stocks.
- Now that I'm a loyal Sirius XM subscriber, I might buy the stock.
It all started with E Street Radio.
In July of 2018, I leased a new vehicle. A Hyundai Elantra. Of course it came with a Sirius XM (SIRI) free trial. At this point, I had all but abandoned listening to Pandora and was using Spotify (SPOT) almost exclusively in and out of the car. I'll explain why in a minute because it's pertinent to the story and my investment thesis.
As a huge Springsteen fan, I decided to check out E Street Radio. At the time I was still dealing with Tom Petty's death (still am), so after getting my fill of Bruce, I hardly ever switched from the newly-discovered Tom Petty Radio. As much as I love E Street Radio, it's not nearly as well produced as Tom Petty Radio. If it weren't for the endless Springsteen live concert recordings, I might not be as avid a listener. But I humbly digress...
At this point, I was hooked.
Somewhere around this time, it hit me. Sirius XM offers more than 100 stations, yet I eagerly subscribed at the end of my trial on the basis of how obsessed I was with just two of them. If two stations could make my Sirius XM subscription one of the discretionary purchases I will never give up, I must be dealing with one hell of a powerful platform.
At different times over the last two years, I decided to branch out. I recalled that one of my childhood radio idols, Kid Kelly, was programming Sirius XM's Hits 1. (He has since been relieved of that position). So I started listening to Hits 1. As a longtime fan of the Top 40 radio format, I was blown away. Kid had Hits 1 playing songs I wasn't hearing on terrestrial radio. While you'll find Harry Styles (formerly of One Direction) on local radio now, Sirius started playing him long before. The amazingly talented Styles (just ask Stevie Nicks) is but one example.
