Sirius XM has signed a new five-year deal with infamous ’shock jock’ Howard Stern, one that will pay him somewhere between $80-$100 million per year.
Stern’s current 5-year $500 million deal expires at the end of the year.
As part of the new deal, the shock jock can also be streamed via mobile/Internet apps, such as those found on the Apple iPhone and Android smartphones, alongside satellite radio devices.
Stern’s first deal blocked the host from being on Internet sources.
Since Stern’s original contract was signed, Sirius’ subscriber base has jumped from 600,000 to 19 million.
Result for: satellite radio
SoundExchange, the establishment that has been tasked with collecting royalties for copyright holders and artists from music streaming services on the Internet, satellite radio and maybe traditional radio soon too, has told artists to label their music properly if they wish to receive their royalties.
SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson wrote in Billboard that the company actually has trouble finding out who owns the copyright to some songs it tracks and claims royalties for. He said the organization had about $40 million in royalties that it collected in 2008, which it could not distribute to artists and copyright owners because it couldn’t find them.
Why not? Because the copyright owners didn’t attach enough information to the song. Simson pleaded that at the very least, every song should include metadata identifying the artist, song name, album name, label or copyright owner.
SoundExchange also is holding $39 million for artists and copyright holders that simply have not registered with SoundExchange yet.
Result for: satellite radio
Less than a year ago, after 18 years of regulatory examination, the Sirius and XM satellite radio services completed a merger. Now it appears that the combined company may be taken over by satellite television giant Echostar.
Over the past several months the company’s value has plummeted. Meanwhile Echostar has been busy buying up much of Sirius XM’s $3.25 billion in debt. Now the New York Times is reporting they’re planning to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy any time.
Under Chapter 11 they would try to work out deals with creditors to restructure their debt load while they reorganize. Getting Echostar to forgive much of it in return for control of the company would be a big step in that direction.
