Media

What Has Boosted Shares of Sirius XM and Pandora

Trey Thoelcke

Published: December 17, 2015 7:20 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 4:00 pm

Shareholders have seen some nice pre-Christmas gains in Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) and Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), but for very different reasons.

On Wednesday the Copyright Royalty Board raised the amount that Internet music streaming services like Pandora must pay to record labels going forward. The panel of copyright judges set the rate for free streaming services to 17 cents per hundred plays, which is up from 14 cents. For paid subscription services, the rate fell from 25 cents to 22. Both rates will rise with inflation through 2020, as the decision sets rates for non-interactive services like Pandora, iHeart Radio and SiriusXM for the next five years.

Pandora hailed the ruling as “balanced” and CEO Brian McAndrews said in a statement that the increase was one the company “can work with and grow from.”

Tuesday morning, SiriusXM announced that Howard Stern had signed an agreement to continue his satellite radio show for another five years. As part of the deal, Sirius and Stern also signed a 12-year deal that licenses to the satellite radio firm Stern’s audio and video library built up over a 30-year career.

There were rumors that Stern would move to Apple Music or Netflix, or even produce his own podcasts, instead of continuing with SiriusXM. But the satellite radio company needs him a lot more than he needs them, and so the deal got done.

Shares of Pandora rose almost 21% in after-hours trading on Wednesday to $16.25. Their 52-week range is $11.39 to $22.60, and the analysts’ consensus price target is $18.76.

SiriusXM shares popped more than 3% on news of the deal, ending a recent slide in the stock. Shares closed at $4.09 on Wednesday and were down fractionally in Thursday’s premarket. They have traded between $3.31 and $4.20 in the past year, and the consensus target price is $4.70.