XM Weather availability

gprellwitz

gprellwitz

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Grant Prellwitz
Any thoughts on what the financial troubles of Sirius XM might do to availability of cockpit weather? I admit, it concerns me a little, and makes me wonder whether the 496 will end up being the good safety investment we hoped.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/17/AR2009021700928.html said:
Liberty Media, the company that owns DirectTV and the Discovery channel, yesterday threw faltering Sirius XM Radio a lifeline, agreeing to loan the company $530 million to help pay off some of its debt and avoid bankruptcy.
[...]
The company pays huge fees for contracts with talent like shock jock Howard Stern, who receives $100 million a year.
[...]
Since Sirius merged with XM last July, the company's stock has plummeted from about $3.80 to 10 cents a share Friday. News of the deal with Liberty pushed Sirius shares to 16 cents yesterday
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15% interest rate? Yikes, my credit card has a lower interest rate than that.

It's an excellent question. I'm debating whether or not I should get a 496. I already have Sirius radio, but if I got a 496 I'd get the weather and music package and cancel my receiver that I have in my car. That said, a 496 represents a pretty heafty expense, and if the weather portion of it is potentially going to disappear, that makes me question the value.

Real question for me: Anyone seen the prices of 496s go down? My biggest thing is going out and spending $2,000 on it.
 
There is a viable market for weather info in portables for cars and airplanes. If they go BK, they (after reorganization) or another company will buy the rights out of the BK court and continue to provide it. As I see it the most you would be out is a month or so of subscription service at the most until another company comes on line. I certainly would not worry about it.
 
Geico266 said:
There is a viable market for weather info in portables for cars and airplanes. If they go BK, they (after reorganization) or another company will buy the rights out of the BK court and continue to provide it. As I see it the most you would be out is a month or so of subscription service at the most until another company comes on line. I certainly would not worry about it.
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I think you're right. There's a lot of value in the satellites and the ground equipment, someone's not going to let that stuff go to waste...


Trapper John
 
Trapper John said:
I think you're right. There's a lot of value in the satellites and the ground equipment, someone's not going to let that stuff go to waste...


Trapper John
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True that there's a lot of value to the equipment, but I don't know that weather tailored to aviation use is enough of a value to a new company that they would necessarily continue providing it as opposed to repurposing the equipment for other types of data.
 
gprellwitz said:
True that there's a lot of value to the equipment, but I don't know that weather tailored to aviation use is enough of a value to a new company that they would necessarily continue providing it as opposed to repurposing the equipment for other types of data.
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A lot of that same WX product is sold to the marine users too. I think that if Sirius XM goes bankrupt it is mainly to renegotiate contracts with the talent so that they can lower salaries and become more viable. But I do not think they will completely out of business.
 
Can't provide the cite, 'cause I can't remember where I read it, but I was just reading something on this the other day. The problem is both XM and Sirius spent silly sums on talent (sic!) which did not generate any significant revenues. One analyst said the only guy who pulled his weight was Howard Stern - and given the numbers he received that's shocking! At any rate, as others have said, worst case scenario is chap 11, drop talent or renegotiate contracts, or someone buys up the assets on the cheap. The cash flows are fine. I wouldn't really worry about the WX disappearing.

But hey, the Feds are going to give us Wx for free through ADS-B, right???!!!!!! :rolleyes:
 
Lots of interesting discussion. I'm in agreement with the camp that sez the cash flow stream from weather is significant enough so that the service will be offered by some one (once the capital investment is written off).

At the risk of heresey, I'll point out that an x96 is not required for XM. Use APIC with an existing laptop/tablet/pda and a 500 to 800 dollar wxworx receiver and you're in the door cheap.

Ok, so I spent more getting there since I started with anywhere map. My mistake and no one else has to make that mistake.
 
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I wonder how much Garmin would throw into the fight to keep SiriusXM alive? As Ted mentioned himself, the x96 units are a lot less interesting without the weather capabilities. I'm guessing there is a large market out there that would abandon the idea of saving $$$ to own an x96 if the wx wasn't available.
 
CJones said:
I wonder how much Garmin would throw into the fight to keep SiriusXM alive? As Ted mentioned himself, the x96 units are a lot less interesting without the weather capabilities. I'm guessing there is a large market out there that would abandon the idea of saving $$$ to own an x96 if the wx wasn't available.
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My guess is zero and they'd say, sorry, the weather isn't provided by us so it's not our problem...


Trapper John
 
Maybe a good reference point here would be Iridium. It cost something like $6B to put up the satellites, the company went bust, a group of private investors bought the assets for $25M, and the service continues today.

Sirius/XM has about $3.5B in debt, but they also have a subscriber base of $19M and bring in about $2B/yr in revenue. I think the current holders of debt and equity have good reason to worry, and if you're a big fan of Oprah or Martha Stewart, maybe you should worry too.

But I don't think having a few billion dollars worth of satellites just go dark is how this story is going to end, nor is the dropping of weather as a service.
-harry
 
Well, I flat out wouldn't buy a 496 (or any x96 series) except for the weather and the music, and the music I have other sources for. That's part of why I've been reluctant to buy into it. My cell phone plays MP3s through my headset just fine (although on a long trip I do find my MP3s to be somewhat limited). I've borrowed 496s a few times for the weather purposes, one of which was for Tony's party. I will say that I really liked having the information, and on that particular trip I found it to be great to have. I've not bought into the "necessity" aspect of the weather yet, and plus I can't tie it into my HSI like the Garmin 150 in my Aztec already is, and the Aztec has on-boad radar (the real deal).

So now I'm somewhat on the fence. The one reason that I would consider buying a 496 (or some other GPS, preferably with weather) anyway is to have the backup in case of a total electrical failure while flying in IMC to help get me to an airport (and also out of IMC). That'd be nice.
 
No it did not. At least not yet.
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The original Iridium went into bankruptcy, and the service was shutdown. After a couple months, their assets were bought on the cheap by a new group of investors, under a slightly different Iridium name, and the service restarted.

As a business venture, under its original structure and plan, it failed. But by going through bankruptcy and shedding all the original investment costs and associated debt, a new Iridium emerged and the service lives on.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
The original Iridium went into bankruptcy, and the service was shutdown. After a couple months, their assets were bought on the cheap by a new group of investors, under a slightly different Iridium name, and the service restarted.

As a business venture, under its original structure and plan, it failed. But by going through bankruptcy and shedding all the original investment costs and associated debt, a new Iridium emerged and the service lives on.
-harry
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The company that started the whole thing and got the satellites launched was not Iridium, it was Motorola. The iridium LLC came after the program started and that was what went bankrupt and New Iridium (NI)corporation bought the assets. Motorola paid over $5,000,000,000 to put the satellites up, the NI bought them for $5,000,000. Iridium LLC was the operator and system provider of the satellites.
 
The iridium LLC came after the program started and that was what went bankrupt and New Iridium (NI)corporation bought the assets.
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Yes, Motorola incorporated the original Iridium as a wholly-owned subsidiary. That corporation raised money from debt and equity, both from private investors and an IPO. Motorola ate it, big, with the bankruptcy of Iridium, but so did a lot of other people.
-harry
 
Trapper John said:
My guess is zero and they'd say, sorry, the weather isn't provided by us so it's not our problem...


Trapper John
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Naw, they'd buy the rights to use the bandwidth, change the format and start selling 796s and GDL96s as the only options for receiving WX downlinks. Of course they'd offer a $250 trade in credit for any 696 or GDL69 still under warranty.
 
lancefisher said:
Naw, they'd buy the rights to use the bandwidth, change the format and start selling 796s and GDL96s as the only options for receiving WX downlinks. Of course they'd offer a $250 trade in credit for any 696 or GDL69 still under warranty.
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:rofl::rofl::rofl: Brilliant!

Another perfect opportunity to employ the GNS-480 customer loyalty rewards strategy!


Trapper John
 
The weather is not Garmin-proprietary, nor is it "produced" by SiriusXM; all SiriusXM does is stream the data, and the incremental cost to them is almost nil; as long as their network is up and running, I expect it will be available for WX transmissions.
 
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