Sirius Mailbag: Time to Get Rid of Stern?

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- Last week, I wrote about the challenges Sirius XM Radio(SIRI Quote) faces, and why I consider the stock a bad investment. Readers stepped up to share their views, both in agreement and dissent. Here are a few:

One reader writes: "The debt is certainly a concern, but Satellite is the present as well as the future. Podcasts in no way come close to Satellite or terrestrial radio. They are substitutes only. Furthermore, terrestrial radio isn't going anywhere and there is a flood of new media technology going on to compete with their territory, yet we don't hear of rumors of death to that old science. Satellite has a niche of business that will only get bigger. Bash the debt if you like, but the media source is cutting edge and the following will only get bigger."

In my opinion, debt is more than just a concern with Sirius. A company that is as leverage as Sirius is can get into a lot of trouble rather quickly due to the size of its quarterly debt servicing requirements. The more valid point in this comment, however, is about the case for the satellite technology. Clearly the technology is amazing, (its beaming signals from space for God's sake) but its wonder does not mean it is superior.

It seems that the divide over whether or not podcasts are a suitable alternative to regular radio come down to whether the person making the argument has used a podcast before. I personally live off of podcasts and find them to be supremely superior to radio programs because I can listen to them whenever I would like, rather than only when they are being broadcast. Also, they are basically immediate since the iTunes app on an iPhone allows streaming. What's the downside?