Oprah Winfrey recently announced she will end her long running successful television show sometime in 2011. I expected she would make some sort of announcement about what her intentions would be with her XM launched Radio Station, but heard nothing.

I have long thought that XM signing Oprah for as much money as they did at the time was an error in judgement given the financial position of the previous stand alone entity. XM subscriptions did not increase in the levels that were expected upon her signing. It is a fact when both companies merged, Sirius brought over the significantly larger customer base. 

I now see a golden opportunity for SiriusXM to have her remain on with her station in a new deal. If Sirius Canada subscribers are able to get her channel down the road, there will be an instant spike in subscription sales. Since Oprah’s channel only relaunched in March 2009 under the new name of Oprah Radio, I am led to believe she is intending to stay for the long run. 

When Oprah leaves television, SiriusXM as a company should continue to provide a great vehicle for her to remain connected with her loyal fan base. Those who are loyal to her but are not yet sattelite radio subscribers will want to keep that connection to her show. 

Sirius subscribers loyal to the Howard Stern Show know the power one individual can have in bringing aboard customers. Howard can successfully claim to having brought well over a million subscribers to SiriusXM in the United States alone.

When the company merger was completed and the best of packages were made available, there was a tremendous increase in revenue from both sets of customer bases with XM fans wanting Howard Stern, and the largely female base of Oprah Winfrey fans who subscribed to Sirius signing up for best of XM based on Oprah Radio alone. I also acknowledge that many male Sirius subscribers in the States bought the best of XM package solely for the increased sports coverage, and used Oprah Radio as a convincing deal breaker to their spouses in order to justify the addional expense. Well done guys!

Once Canadian subscribers are able to have that fair exchange of channels, additional package revenues should increase, and the overall subscription rate should increase even more. Love her or loathe her, Oprah Winfrey will play a tremendous role in increasing the audience of this great medium.