It may be one of the best catch phrases in comics history.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Written by Walt Kelly, those telling words describe many life and business situations. Kelly created Pogo, a fixture on the comics pages of daily newspapers all over America for 25 years. Kelly dreamed up this metaphorical comic strip set in a swamp. Our hero was the eponymous Pogo, a possum who the stories, jokes, satire, and political irony are channeled through. Unlike comic strips that were corny or occasionally grin-inducing, Pogo was more like Doonesbury, a dark commentary of the time.
Right up there with Charlie Brown’s “Good grief!” or Spiderman’s axiom about the potent mix of power and resposibility, Pogo’s brilliant turn on an old military quote, “We have met the enemy and they are ours” sums up so much of what is crazy about our lives. A spinoff of “We only have ourselves to blame,” Kelly had a way of turning the focus back to us in a sweeping explanation for what’s wrong in the world.
A number of you have used Kelly’s famous axiom to sum up what’s wrong with radio in the comments section of this blog, perhaps a more elegant way of laying the blame right outside the industry’s corner offices. To my thinking though, pinning the blame on those denizens at the very top of the org chart is a too convenient way of creating scapegoats that explain how the industry got off-track in the first place.
The fact is that even had radio broadcasters been totally prepared to take on the “digital revolution” clear-eyed and head-on, much of the disruption that has so encircled radio would have likely happened anyway. Some of the so-called “disruptors” are more dangerous and powerful than others. And with some that impacting listening time and attention—podcasting comes to mind—radio broadcasters are not only participants in the space, but in a lot of ways, play a major role.
And then there are the tech platforms where radio broadcasters are on the outside looking in. Like DSPs such as Spotify, an aggressive, proactive company that’s always innovating and working hard to create a better user experience that enables it to generate more revenue—and profits. Yes, radio broadcasters have dabbled in the world of playlist creation, but players like Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, AccuRadio and the many others in the streaming wilderness are mostly trying to carve out usage time—and money—from the incumbents. Like radio broadcasters.
But to get down to the Pogo analysis—that is, beyond ourselves, who is radio’s #1 enemy—you might get a litany of different answers. In fact, if you asked five broadcasters to name the most
problematic challenge facing radio right now, you’re liable to get seven or eight responses. And they might all be different from one another. It’s the old saying, “It depends on who you ask.”
If radio broadcasters actually researched in and around their own space with regularity and attention, they would most assuredly know who’s done the most aggressive job of eroding radio. But sadly, radio has precious little data outside its own bubble. Don’t look to Nielsen for help or clarity because radio honchos have made it clear over the decades they’d rather not have this data out in the wild where advertisers could see it and would undoubtedly use it to negotiate even lower rates than they’re forking over now.
But to not know about who’s on the other side of enemy lines makes it challenging, if not impossible, to effectively counter or parry the frontal assaults as well as the subtle incursions on what was once radio broadcasters’ dominant position on the audio hierarchy.
If only someone was doing trackable national studies designed to provide this information. OK, OK, all Pogo-esque cynicism aside, plotting radio’s competitive space has been one of the tenets of Techsurvey since we launched these studies way back in 2004-05. If you’ve seen or heard me present one of the studies at one point or the other over these past couple decades, you might recall I always articulate that a goal of Techsurvey “is to determine what core radio listeners are doing when they’re not listening to AM/FM radio.”
By having this information and including its implications in radio strategy sessions, the industry might be better able to effectively compete against competitors with more staffs and deeper pockets.
So when Pogo looks at the vast array of enemies (excluding looking in the mirror, of course), where does the smart money and the brilliant minds peg the true competitive problem? Or to get right down into the media swamp:
“Radio, we have met the enemy and it is…SiriusXM.”
I don’t point the finger lightly at the scions of the satellite. Aside from the fact they’ve been on the media map since the beginning of this millennium, former radio pioneers such as Lee Abrams were on the ground floors of both XM and Sirius when they were separate companies. Howard Stern’s defection from FM radio to Sirius way back in 2006, it not only triggered thousands of new subscribers—mostly core radio listeners—it also validated the satcaster as a player in the hierarchy of audio.
And over these many years, many of the key executives overseeing content and strategy are in fact former radio programmers and managers. Yes, they know what you know, but now have so much more data, research, and experience from their time spent in the world of satellite radio. Add up the sheer number of radio ex-pats at any successful media tech company and more of them are fixtures at SXM.
Techsurvey 2025 reveals SiriusXM has achieved an all-new high (subscriptions + those on a free trial plan) at around 30% of our core radio sample. Skeptics may argue that level of access isn’t close to achieving critical mass—and they’re not wrong. But if you study where satellite radio has been most effective, it’s in the car—radio’s top listening location for decades and decades. By vying for audience share, revenue, and attention, SXM has always posed a competitive threat. But now under newish CEO Jennifer Witz, broadcast radio is most assuredly in its crosshairs.
And as you can see on the chart above, SiriusXM’s generational sweet spot echoes the older skew of broadcast radio. GenXers and Boomers dominate SXM’s subscriber rolls. And it’s been that way since they started shooting satellites into space.
But that’s not all. When we ask these people with SiriusXM to tell us how it has impacted their broadcast radio listening, the results aren’t just telling—they’re terrifying.
All told, more than one-third report that since having satellite radio, they are now listening to a little or a lot less AM/FM radio. It totals up to a net loss for broadcast radio of 23% among those who now can listen to SXM.
Over these past few years, SXM has wavered—OK, waffled—over its stated intentions and its preferred battleground. The most recent version of its mobile app was a complete redo, designed to better attract listening outside the car – at home, at work, at the grocery store, at sports arenas. That experiment appears to be over, and now the satcaster is rededicating its efforts against broadcast radio by re-emphasizing the car as its top listening location.
SXM CEO Jennifer Witz
Last week, Radio Ink’s Cameron Coats wrote a story about SXM’s new gameplan that left little to the imagination about how they now envision the media battlefield. In “After Streaming Setback, SiriusXM Targets Terrestrial Radio,” Cameron quotes their CEO, Jennifer Witz:
“We have a real opportunity here to take share from AM/FM with the right price points and packages.”
Not much reading-in-between-the-lines analysis needed here in 2025. Even an animated possum can figure out how the satcaster is reimagining the revenue pie.
Coats notes the emphasis will be on the launch of a new “ad-supported subscription tier.” That’s right—commercials on SXM’s music and talk channels for a considerably lower (but not yet announced subscription fee). It’s a similar model to what video streamers like Netflix and Disney+ have successfully offered, a chance to build up the subscriber lists in order to effectively sell ads.
In the meantime, the commercial-free version of SXM earns positive scores among Techsurvey 2025 respondents who are satellite radio subscribers. Well more than one-third (37%) give SiriusXM “excellent” ratings, stronger among progressively older generations—the core AM/FM listening audience.
Why does satellite fare so well among respondents who are core radio fans? Because it most closely mimics the look, the feel, and the experience of listening to broadcast radio, right down to being able to use presets in many “connected car” interfaces. In this way, “The Highway” can be one punch away from KSCS or WYCD.
Even a swamp dweller could tell you that.
Originally published by Jacobs Media
