Column Sends Sirius Backers Into Orbit

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Every couple of months, readers implore the author of SuperModels to answer their questions with the cry, 'Hey Modelman!'

Hey Modelman: Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio (XMSR) will grow, and so will the stock prices over time. The future of satellite radio is obviously upon us whether you like it or not. I would buy Sirius stock and sleep well. In one year, Sirius will be over $15/share and XM over $45/share!

Hey Modelman: What are you doing? All my friends think you have lost your mind. How do you compare the iPod, a glorified Walkman, to satellite radio, which is the future and will not fail? I always speak highly of your reports but got slapped by this one. I am one of thousands who think the same way.

Hey Modelman: Get a life. You're just upset you could not catch the boat in time to buy. People like you should just quit. You really stink as a writer. I will never read any of your stories again. Get real, guy, Sirius is the future.

Modelman: Most of the several hundred emails I received on this subject insisted that I just don't get satellite radio, that it shouldn't be compared unfavorably with the iPod, that its prospects as a medium are without limit and that I'm an idiot for critiquing their pet rock.

First of all, I explained and recommended satellite radio back when Sirius was selling for $1, and most of the letter-writers were still smarting from their bear market losses. In a May 2003 column, I wrote:

If you missed your chance to invest in cable television in the 1980s, and then missed your chance to invest in personal computers in the early 1990s and then missed your chance to invest in the Internet in the mid-1990s, then the market gods are giving you one more opportunity to get ahead of the crowd: You can invest in satellite radio right now, right here in the early '00s.