The “Howard who?” jab is unnecessarily provocative, but it helps illustrate a point. According to a leaked internal memo, courtesy of Alley Insider, the Sirius XM iPhone app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since its release last Thursday. All the assumptions that “no one” would download the app because of its lack of Howard Stern (and MLB and NFL), it seems, were just slightly off-base. (Perhaps more than that.)
Now Sirius XM needs the free trial-people who downloaded the app to actually subscribe to the service. I mean, 500,000 downloads is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s only so helpful if these people turn around and then subscribe to the service. The $13-a-month streaming-only subscription isn’t a bad deal when you consider all the content you’d be getting, but now Sirius XM has to compete with the likes of Pandora and whatnot.
God, remember all those dumb logos in anticipation of the Sirius-XM merger? Oh, memories.