There’s been buzz about how the price to listen to Alex Cooper and Howard Stern on SiriusXM might shift due to proposed tariffs under President Donald Trump’s administration. Here’s the breakdown based on what’s out there:
SiriusXM, the satellite radio giant hosting big names like Howard Stern and Alex Cooper (of Call Her Daddy fame), relies heavily on new car sales to fuel subscriber growth. Many new subscribers come through free trials bundled with newly purchased vehicles.
On Thursdasy, reports surfaced—via outlets like Yahoo Finance and Quartz—that Trump’s proposed tariffs on automakers could ripple through to SiriusXM’s business model.
These tariffs, which took effect earlier that week, include a 25% duty on imports from Mexico and most Canadian goods, plus a 20% tariff on Chinese imports. If fully implemented—and if other countries retaliate—the cost of manufacturing cars could climb, pushing up vehicle prices and potentially slowing new car sales.
If fewer people buy new cars, fewer get those trial subscriptions, which could shrink SiriusXM’s subscriber base. CEO Jennifer Witz, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference this week, noted that the company had expected “relatively stable” new car sales early in the year, but the tariff talk threw a wrench into that.
She said it’s “hard to say right now where that’s going to land,” pointing to strong sales in January and February but uncertainty ahead. If sales drop, SiriusXM might need to tweak its pricing—currently around $9.99/month for streaming plans and higher for in-car packages like All Access (which includes Stern)—to offset the loss. That could mean higher costs for listeners tuning into Stern’s rants or Cooper’s interviews.
On the flip side, SiriusXM has a buffer: used car sales, which account for 50% of its trial subscriptions, should dodge the tariff hit. Witz highlighted plans to lean into longer-term subscriptions and adjust pricing strategies to navigate this. Still, with Stern’s contract running through 2025 and Cooper’s $125 million deal kicking off this year, any price hike would directly affect what you’d pay to hear them. No hard numbers on price changes have been confirmed—it’s speculative for now—but the tariff pressure could force SiriusXM to pass some costs onto subscribers if new car-driven growth stalls.
Tariffs could escalate, car prices could spike, and SiriusXM might either absorb the hit or nudge up your bill. For now, it’s a “might change” scenario—worth watching if you’re a Daddy Gang member or a Stern loyalist. Anything beyond this is guesswork until SiriusXM or the market shows its hand.
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