Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) is once again reminding its subscribers that being a member of a premium satellite radio service has its benefits.
The media giant is celebrating 10 years of satellite radio by staging a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert at Harlem's legendary nonprofit Apollo Theater.
You can't buy tickets to the March 9 show. Well, at least not legally.
Subscribers will be given a crack at winning tickets through dedicated listener emails, call-in promotions, and through the Sirius XM website. With 21.9 million subscribers, the chances are pretty slim of succeeding. The theater's seating capacity is limited, and you can imagine that a fair chunk of the seats will be distributed within the company.
However, this is more about the gesture than the opportunity. Most subscribers will simply settle for listening to the live broadcast on Sirius XM.
This isn't a new tactic for Sirius XM. It hosted Paul McCartney in the same theater 14 months ago to celebrate crossing the 20 million subscriber milestone. However, it emphasizes what a profitable company with $3 billion in annual revenue can do.
Pandora (NYSE: P) may have announced last month that it crossed the 125 million mark in registered users, but it may not be able to justify a lavish concert since most of its listeners are not paying members.
Terrestrial giant Clear Channel (OTC: CCMO) did host a star-studded music festival to mark the launch of its beefed up iHeartRadio app, but it's rare to see a traditional radio company stir up national buzz like that.
Springsteen is a convenient choice. Sirius XM has a dedicated Springsteen channel in its lineup. Former E Street guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt heads up the neighboring Underground Garage channel. In other words, the show itself will draw even more attention to Sirius XM's own programming.
Springsteen may have once sung about nothing being on 57 channels, but it's a brand new world for satellite radio.
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