Howard Stern Helped Make SiriusXM Billions. Can Podcasts Do the Same?

Last year, Mel Robbins summoned four of the top podcasting networks to Boston to bid on the chance to work with her.

“I was not willing to do business with somebody who did not actually come and see our operations,” said Ms. Robbins, the longtime life coach behind “The Mel Robbins Podcast.”

She was in an enviable negotiating position. As she approached the end of her contract with the SiriusXM Podcast Network, her social media followers and episode downloads had swelled into the multimillions. She was still months away from the explosive publication of her Oprah Winfrey-approved self-help book, “The Let Them Theory.”

Yet Ms. Robbins ultimately chose to stay with her network. Best known for satellite radio, SiriusXM has quietly become a dominant player in podcasting, rivaling Spotify and Amazon’s Wondery — largely because of its impulse to cater to talent.

It now represents half of the top 20 podcasts in the United States, according to Edison Research, a firm that has ranked podcasts since 2019. That is more than any other network.

To get there, SiriusXM has made some lucrative deals, outspending or matching competitors in the frenzied race to persuade increasingly famous podcasters, such as Ms. Robbins or Alex Cooper of the show “Call Her Daddy,” to sign over their advertising and distribution rights. Headlines about $100 million podcast deals, including the comedy podcast “SmartLess,” raised eyebrows throughout 2024.

And yet, until these contracts end, typically in about three years, it may not be entirely clear whether they were worth their cost — particularly for a publicly held media company under pressure to turn around its losses.

SiriusXM does not claim to be trying to transform itself from a subscription radio company into a podcast advertising business. It is still bringing in $8.7 billion in revenue, entering the Fortune 500 this year as Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway increased its ownership to over 35 percent.

But it is looking for ways to stay alive, and even thrive, in a fraught media landscape. To corporate media giants, like ESPN or Fox News, podcasts seem to offer that: Not only do they diversify revenue, they expand talent pools.

So far, there are positive signs. SiriusXM has never publicly disclosed its podcasting revenue. But “off-platform” earnings were $606 million in 2024, with podcast advertising making up most of that sum — an increase from $475 million in 2022, according to figures reviewed by The New York Times.

“Podcasting remains a bright spot,” the company’s chief executive, Jennifer Witz, told investors in July, even as the lights of its core business have dimmed. Its share price plummeted nearly 60 percent last year; revenue fell, too, by about 3 percent. Satellite subscribers have fallen to 33 million from nearly 35 million in 2019.

Some analysts have expressed skepticism about the company’s future, and investors have been warned of more losses to come. Even the famed shock jock Howard Stern is rumored to be considering his departure, despite reportedly earning up to $100 million per year from SiriusXM.

Ever since it freed Mr. Stern from federal radio regulations in 2004, SiriusXM has touted its talent relationships. These can be costly and competitive. Amid the rise of chatty video shows with big personalities, Netflix is now considering entering the podcast space, becoming yet another big spender vying for exclusive talent deals.

From his Midtown Manhattan office, stuffed with pop culture memorabilia, the president of SiriusXM, Scott Greenstein, explained how he handled threats to his talent stable, like the attempted poaching of Ms. Robbins: “Make sure they’re happy.” (It doesn’t hurt that, so far this year, Ms. Robbins has tripled her 2024 advertising revenue, according to the company.)

‘Crime Junkie Radio’

This year, Ms. Cooper released “Call Her Alex,” a self-produced documentary that included a scene of the podcaster anxiously awaiting news about recent deal negotiations.

“SiriusXM is your new home,” her agent finally tells her, voice beamed through speaker phone. (He was on a boat.) A clip montage reveals that Ms. Cooper “jumped ship from Spotify” for a multiyear contract worth up to $125 million.

Technically, Spotify remains the country’s top podcasting network by audience thanks to “The Joe Rogan Experience,” a virtually untouchable megahit. But without Mr. Rogan in the picture, SiriusXM “would move into first place,” said Melissa Kiesche, a senior vice president at Edison Research. (SiriusXM is one of several companies that fund Edison’s surveys.) In SiriusXM’s view, a stable of popular hosts can be more lucrative than one superstar.

Competitors in this game include all the logos you might see in the corner of your favorite show’s cover art, or hear name-checked in the end credits: iHeart, Audacy, Audioboom, Vox, Barstool Sports for men or Dear Media for women.

The more top podcasts that a network acquires, the more people it reaches, and the more attractive it becomes to potential advertisers. Networks seduce hosts with money, exposure and production support.

SiriusXM entered this arena in 2020 after buying the podcast platform Stitcher, which was home to shows like “Freakonomics,” celebrity podcasters like Marc Maron and Ms. Winfrey, and the beloved comedy network Earwolf. (SiriusXM also owns AdsWizz, a technology platform used by media companies including The Times.)

SiriusXM paid $265 million in cash for Stitcher, although the overall deal was worth “up to” $325 million, based on Stitcher’s future performance.

This framing is critical to understanding modern podcasting deals: SiriusXM did not pay Ms. Cooper $125 million outright, as some headlines suggested. Rather, $125 million is the maximum that her production company, Unwell, can earn if it hits the ambitious audience numbers laid out in their agreement.

Ms. Cooper’s deal also included the creation of two Unwell radio channels on SiriusXM’s satellite service. A newer deal with Stephen A. Smith will work in reverse. The provocative basketball commentator recently agreed to host two SiriusXM satellite shows, one (daily) about sports and another (weekly) about current events, pop culture and social commentary. After airing on the radio, they will be released as weekly podcasts.

“Having that additional distribution channel of the satellite is pretty big,” Ms. Kiesche said, pausing to look up the three-digit channel number for Crime Junkie Radio, SiriusXM’s first true-crime station, based on the chart-topping podcast. “That allows them to even reach an audience that wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves a podcast listener.”

Not Another Netflix

Here is the problem with podcast advertising: Though nearly half of Americans listen to podcasts monthly, brands generally allocate “less than 2 percent” of their advertising budgets to the format, according to Scott Walker, the chief advertising revenue officer at SiriusXM. Video podcasts further complicated the equation.

“The industry is wrestling with how to define a podcast,” Mr. Walker said. “It is evolving, especially with the advent of YouTube and video. And if you can’t define it, you can’t measure it, you can’t monetize it.”

One solution has been to treat podcast hosts more as creators, monetizing their channels outside audio. When traditional media isn’t the focus, advertiser budgets more readily open up.

In April, SiriusXM introduced Creator Connect, allowing brands to buy ads on podcasters’ social media posts and videos, or sponsor their live events.

In June, for example, the company hosted a video taping of the podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” at its New York headquarters. It was sponsored by Macy’s and packed with 50 fans, including a few women who were near tears while hugging Mr. O’Brien. The network is also pursuing more deals with TikTok creators like Tinx.

SiriusXM is not alone in emphasizing creators. Spotify now gives podcast publishers financial incentives to upload videos, and it changed the name of its podcasting dashboard to “Spotify for Creators.” This month, Amazon formed a new division, Creator Services, to turn the video stars of Wondery — the football players Jason and Travis Kelce, the actor Dax Shepard, basketball’s LeBron James — into broader brand ambassadors.

At SiriusXM, the great video embrace has been more “judicious,” Mr. Greenstein said. “We’re not going to be Netflix,” he added. “We’re still an audio company.”

And audio has its challenges. Traffic has declined at Pandora, the streaming service that SiriusXM acquired in 2019 for about $3.5 billion in stock. Fiery rumors of Mr. Stern’s departure are not helping SiriusXM’s public perception, either, although Mr. Stern is set to address them on the air next month, after returning from a summer hiatus.

Could podcasts be enough to offset the company’s current or future losses? “Sure, I mean, money is money, so it all goes into one pot,” said Mr. Greenstein, who is also the company’s chief content officer. But this potential isn’t what really drew him to the podcast business.

He wanted access to new personalities. Podcasts were “clearly,” he said, the place to scout the kind of unabashed, unbridled media stars who initially propelled SiriusXM; Ms. Cooper, for one, has long been compared to Mr. Stern.

“I like that the wall has never been lower for creativity,” Mr. Greenstein said. “You can set up a mic or your phone and you’re a podcaster.”