SiriusXM To Increase Sub Prices In March

SiriusXM Pandora will raise the price of its satellite and streaming radio packages in March, a move that will also impact the cost of the company’s music royalty fee that is passed along to subscribers.

The Desk was first to report the company began notifying customers this week of the subscription and royalty music fee increases, which will begin March 14, 2023. It comes after The Desk reported last September that executives were considering price hikes on customers, with the justification that new hardware and features warranted an increase in the cost of service.

The price adjustment means customers on SiriusXM’s ultra-premium satellite radio plan, called SiriusXM Platinum, will pay almost $30 a month for access to nearly 200 music, sports, talk and news channels, with included access to SiriusXM’s streaming radio app that offers more than 450 linear content channels.

The adjusted prices rolling out to customers (rounded to the nearest dollar) are:

• SiriusXM Platinum: $24 a month (previously $23 a month)
• SiriusXM Platinum VIP: $36 a month (previously $35 a month)
• SiriusXM Music & Entertainment: $19 a month (previously $18 a month)
• SiriusXM Music Showcase: $14 a month (previously $13 a month)
• SiriusXM A-la-Carte: $11 a month (previously $10 a month)
• SiriusXM A-la-Carte Gold: $19 a month (previously $18 a month)
• SiriusXM All-in-One: $21 a month (previously $20 a month)
• SiriusXM Family Friendly All-in-One: $19 a month (previously $18 a month)
• SiriusXM News, Sports & Talk: $14 a month (previously $13 a month)
• SiriusXM Streaming Platinum: $12 a month (previously $11 a month)
• SiriusXM Streaming Music & Entertainment: $9 a month (previously $8 a month)
• SiriusXM Streaming Music Showcase: $6 a month (previously $5 a month)

Customers who are receiving promotional rates — including those who are on extended free trials — will not see a price increase until their plan moves to a non-promotion subscription.

SiriusXM Sector

Last Thursday, SiriusXM said it ended 2022 with more than $9 billion in revenue, an increase from the $8.7 billion in revenue the company brought in during 2021. While it added 134,000 subscribers during its most-recent financial quarter, the company said it anticipated some rough waters in 2023.

“We’ll see modestly negative self-pay net adds for the year as economic and demand uncertainty persists, auto sales remain soft, and we moderate marketing spend for our streaming service early in the year ahead of planned product improvements late in 2023,” Jennifer Witz, the company’s chief executive, said during a conference call with investors and reporters.

Last year, Witz warned that promotional rates given to some customers in an attempt to reduce churn rates might ease up; previously, customers were able to get a retention rate as low as $6 a month if they told a SiriusXM representative that they wanted to cancel their service.

Instead, Witz said increasing rates on customers was “better for revenue, so we’re constantly looking to adjust, so we can build overall revenue growth.”

Witz said she was aware that some on-demand audio services like Apple Music and Spotify are priced lower than what SiriusXM Pandora offers, but that the company is laser focused on reaching younger customers with better technology and more live programming. One technology the company is heavily invested in is the SiriusXM 360L platform, which fuses its traditional satellite radio channels with an expanded lineup of hundreds of online-only streams curated by SiriusXM.