Car Pacts Don’t Worry SiriusXM CEO; She Seeks to Curb Pandora Hours Fall

always had a clear competitive advantage in the car.” The satellite radio platform continues “strengthening our OEM relationships,” said Witz. Reversing declining Pandora ad-supported listener hours remains a problem, as it was before SiriusXM’s 2019 acquisition of the music-streaming service, conceded Witz. Listener hours fell 7% last year to 12.5 billion. “We’re clearly focused on decline in listenership,” the CEO said. “We’re continuing to find ways to work at that,” including “improving engagement across connected devices and in the car,” she said. “It has been harder than we expected.” The “valuation” of the SXM-7 satellite is underway after it “suffered damage during in-orbit testing that resulted in the failure of certain payloads,” said new Chief Financial Officer Sean Sullivan. Though the “full extent of the damage to the satellite is not yet known, we do not expect our service to be impacted,” he said. SXM-7 launched successfully aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December, he said. The SXM-3 and SXM-4 satellites “are expected to support our service for several years,” said Sullivan. SXM-5 “remains available as an in-orbit spare.” he said. Development of SXM-8 is “well underway, and we expect it to be launched later this year,” he said. SiriusXM bought a $225 million insurance policy on SXM-7 for its “first year of in-orbit operations,” he said. “We have notified the underwriters of a potential claim.”