SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz was one of the featured guests at the recent Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, which took place in San Francisco. Of note was a question and answer about the importance of sports programming to their overall value proposition.
SiriusXM has an abundance of sports programming, including play-by-play of every NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL game. Cameron Mansson-Perrone of Morgan Stanley asked Witz about the unique value in having all of the sports audio under one umbrella.
“We definitely have a unique value proposition in sports,” she said. “By having all the big league’s play-by-play in one place…it doesn’t exist certainly in audio and also in video anywhere. And so, while it may not be the largest driver of time spent listening, it is really important as part of the value proposition. And we see that whether it’s trialers or our subscribers. When they tune into sports, that conversion rates and retention rates are higher. So, it’s definitely a key part of our value proposition.”
Witz pointed out that it is not just the major sports either. “…We have golf and wrestling and MMA and tennis and racing. So it’s a broad set of not only hearing the races or anything else, but also the commentary we have around that. And I think there’s probably even more we can do there.”
For SiriusXM it also isn’t just about sports, but a wide array of programming. Witz added, “I mean we’re differentiated also because of the breadth of content we have in talk and podcast with the exclusive content we have with hosts like Howard Stern or Jeff Lewis or Megyn Kelly…it’s hard to be differentiated in music, because artists want their songs to be everywhere. And so for us, it’s about how we package up the music and make it more accessible.”
