One Thing You Should Know About Sirius XM and Howard Stern

Mac Greer: Howard Stern is in the final year of his contract. Motley Fool analyst Rick Munarriz, what's one thing that everyone should know about the Sirius XM (NYSE: SIRI) Howard Stern deal?

Rick Munarriz: I think there's a misconception out there that it's a binary event --- either Howard Stern signs with Sirius XM and everybody's happy, or he signs with a terrestrial-radio company, like Viacom (NYSE: VIA), CBS (NYSE: CBS), or Clear Channel (NYSE: CCU), and his fans move on, migrating back to terrestrial radio. They go old-school again. But there's a third scenario, which is, of course, that Howard Stern may retire. And there's a fourth scenario, which is that he may start his own platform and just charge people $10 a month to listen to him, either online streaming, or syndicated through various channels.

You know, Stern has a lot of options, which is why I think that he hasn't been quick to make his decision. We're already four and a half years into this five-year contract, and even though there seems to be every indication that he will not return to the FCC-regulated airwaves of terrestrial radio, anything could happen at this point. There's always the chance that he may come stick around for Sirius XM in some kind of advisory role, some kind of consultant role. Maybe he'll have a show like Oprah Winfrey that's just basically one show a week where he's actually on, and everything else revolves around him.

Sirius XM is not going to die if Howard Stern walks away. And I think that what's going to happen here is that all the Howard Stern fans who think they're going to cancel their Sirius subscriptions if Howard Stern leaves are going to find that all the other stuff that they've come to appreciate from satellite radio, they're not going to find in terrestrial radio or through clicking onto Pandora in their smartphones.