SiriusXM Ready to Up Yours

Sirius XM to hike subscription fees in 2012

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Sirius XM Radio Inc. said it expects to raise its prices next year, now that a federal mandate to freeze subscriber fees has been lifted, according to a posting by Alex Pham, Company Town blog at latimes.com.

"We continue to believe it would be appropriate for us to increase our pricing to be able to continue investing in and delivering the best audio content in the world," said Sirius XM Chief Executive Mel Karmazin during a conference call with analysts to discuss the New York company's second-quarter earnings.

Karmazin did not say how much the increases will be, noting that the company has not changed its monthly base fee of $12.95 since the merger of Sirius and XM in 2008. As a condition of approving the merger, regulators at the Federal Communications Commission barred the combined company from raising its prices.

The FCC lifted that restriction last Thursday. [See original posting]

David Frear, Sirius XM's chief financial officer, acknowledged that higher prices could decrease the service's number of paying subscribers, which surpassed 21 million in the quarter ended June 30.

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