Archive for Thursday, September, 11, 2008

A Sirius S.O.S. Call Goes Out…

Thursday, September, 11, 2008 by Mel Phillips.

Man the lifeboats - women, children and chief executives first!  Things at Sirius XM aren’t Lehman Brothers-bad but they’re close.  You might say the situation at Sirius is, well, serious.  Wall Street thought that Mel Karmazin’s projections for the number of Sirius subscribers and financial figures a bit below their expectations.  Sirius XM shares have fallen below a dollar.  You can’t even buy the Sunday newspaper for that…

Although Sirius XM shares have fallen 41% since the merger, once the debt is paid off, operating costs are trimmed and refinancing is in place there is some optimism ahead.  Sirius XM expects to have its radios in 50% of all U.S. new cars and the Mel-man still predicts the company’s first-ever operating profit next year…

In pure investor-speak, J.P. Morgan analyst Barton Crockett was quoted in Forbes with this:  “Near-term headwinds may continue to weigh on the shares.  Longer term we expect the company to be able to refinance its debt and for earnings to ramp sharply.”  Hopefully for Sirius, Crockett was referring to the ‘up’ ramp… 

10 Timeline Memories:

  1. 1941] Breaking ground: Groundbreaking begins in Arlington (VA) for the building of the Pentagon. Ironically, the Pentagon suffers damage and deaths at the hands of the 911 terrorists 60 years later, to the day…
  2. 1954] Walking on network ground, she is: The ‘Miss America Pageant’ makes its TV network debut on ABC-TV. Miss California, Lee Ann Meriwether is the winner…
  3. 1964] Down for the count: “Friday Night Fights“ is seen for the last time as Gillette’s TV contract ends…
  4. 1967] Premiered on this date: “The Carol Burnett Show“ on CBS-TV (it will run until September, 1979)…1974] “Little House On The Prairie“ (runs until March, 1983)…
  5. 1971] “Happy Trails”: Nikita Krushchev dies of a heart attack at 77…1987] Reggae star Peter Tosh is shot and killed in his Jamaica home at 43…1994] Jessica Tandy passes away from ovarian cancer at 85… 2002] Football Hall of Fame QB Johnny Unitas succumbs to a heart attack at 69…2003] An undetected heart flaw takes the life of John Ritter. Ritter, son of Tex Ritter, was 54…
  6. 1982] Open and closed: Chris Evert wins her 6th and final U.S. Open title…1983] Jimmy Connors wins his 5th and final U.S. Open title…
  7. 1985] The hitman: Pete Rose becomes baseball’s all-time hit leader off of San Diego’s Eric Show. Hit number 4,192 breaks Ty Cobb’s longstanding record by one hit…
  8. 1987] What’s the black screen Kenneth?: The screen goes black for 6 minutes as Dan Rather walks off the set of “The CBS Evening News” because a tennis tournament ran overtime, upsetting Rather…
  9. 1994] Emmy gold: The winners at the 46th Emmy Awards include “Frasier“, “Picket Fences” and Kelsey Grammer…
  10. 2001] 911: The horror that was 911 takes nearly 3,000 lives, mostly at the World Trade Center but also at the Pentagon and in a field near Pittsburgh…

Music Memories:

“Happy Birthday…happy birthday”:

Harry Connick Jr. (41), Moby (43), Virginia Madsen (45), Kristy McNichol (46), Lesley Visser (55) and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart (65)…

Timeline Countdown: 11 days until the beginning of autumn, 17 days until the end of the regular MLB season and 19 days until the playoffs…

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