- Financially strapped Sirius XM Radio Inc. said Friday that it could file for bankruptcy as early as Tuesday if it cannot successfully negotiate with the holders of its debt.

While the satellite radio company said it has exchanged $172.5 million of debt maturing in December for new debt due in 2011, it still has about $175 million coming due this Sunday.

Sirius is fighting against attempts for control by Charlie Ergen, the chief executive of Dish Network Corp. and sister company EchoStar Corp. Ergen bought much of a $300 million batch of discounted Sirius bonds that come due next week. Sirius had rejected a previous offer by Ergen for control of the company.

A bankruptcy filing for Sirius would give it the right to terminate contracts with on-air talent, such as Martha Stewart and Howard Stern, who has a five-year, $500 million deal. A Chapter 11 filing also could crimp Sirius' growth because subscribers might shy away from a company in bankruptcy. Sirius has nearly 20 million listeners and provides a wide range of music, sports and talk radio.

Liberty Media Corp. is in talks with Sirius about possibly investing in the company, a move that could fend off Ergen.

But the DirecTV Group Inc., a Dish rival controlled by Liberty Chairman John Malone, is not involved in the negotiations, according to a person close to the situation. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk about the negotiations. Liberty's participation in the talks was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Analysts said they didn't think DirecTV would want a satellite radio business or its satellites. DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite TV company, has launched new satellites and is focusing on enhancing its TV service.

Sirius and Liberty declined to comment.

The struggle over Sirius brings together three strong personalities: Malone, Ergen and Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin.

It also renews the adversarial relationship between Karmazin and Ergen. In 2004, when Karmazin was head of Viacom Inc. and in a dispute with Ergen over the fees Dish had to pay to carry Viacom channels, Dish published Karmazin's home number and told subscribers to call him.

This time, Karmazin is in a much weaker position, with Sirius' debt coming due that the company is not in good shape to repay. In total, Sirius has about $3.3 billion in debt maturing between now and 2014.

Given time, Sirius' purchase of rival XM last year could have led Sirius out of its troubles. The merged company became the only satellite radio provider in the country. By eliminating duplicated operations, it was able to cut costs deeply.

Karmazin's plans were foiled by a tight credit market that made refinancing difficult, and plunging sales of autos, its main distribution channel. Karmazin started to swap some debt maturing Sunday with equity, with limited success.

Ergen swept in and bought much of the debt, putting Karmazin in a tough position. Liberty then came into the picture as a possible lifeline.

On Friday, Sirius made some strides with part of its debt due in December. It swapped a portion of the 10 percent convertible senior notes due this year for senior secured notes due 2011. In return, debt holders will get an annualized 10 percent interest in cash, plus 2 percent in kind in 2010 and 4 percent in 2011. They also received a fee of $9.45 million, of which $5.1 million was paid in cash and the rest in Sirius common shares at 7.4 cents each.

Shares of Sirius were up 3.1 cents, or 42 percent, to 10.5 cents in afternoon trading.

i don't think anyone would buy stock in that piece of crap.
while other stocks have been for the most part at performance with a slight recovery,Sirius slammed the bottom then flatlined.

the reason i say it's risky is not because it lost value.
if you go to Yahoo finance and look up the chart for Sirius.
Now compare the chart to the DOW ,or NASDAQ.
Compare another stock like GE or CAT.
You will see that Sirius not only lost value but also in the last couple months,lost it's ability to follow the market trends.
GE and CAT follow the Dow and other indices.That tells you the stocks are still strong and are just running with the pack.
Sirius can't do that anymore because it's stock is now to weak to have enough long investors.

There is absolutely no reason to defend yourself because Sirius is definitely a gamble. But at this point it's a gamble with a potentially large upside if they can work out the problems. Hell it's a niche product in a niche a market, and it's just too bad that the CEO is a complete moron.

I agree,the problem isn't the market it's in.
There is a big demand for satellite radio,the problem is the company,it's investments, and is marketing and execution also it's lack of willingness to expand in partnerships.
If one were a real gambler and wasn't afraid to loose money,it might be a long term investment,as long as they don't go into bankruptcy.
The doubling of investment could just as easily be a cut in half with no way back.
I just wouldn't bet money on short ups and downs unless you have the time to really watch the stock and the company closely.
If they do go into a partnership with a satellite or cable company,it would be worth the bet, and i'd go in for a few thousand shares before the stock rises.

Thats the almost certain guarantee about investing in market performance stock.When the market rises,so will the at market performance stocks,and some of those stocks are dirt cheap compaired to where they were two years ago.
The problem is..When are they going to be at their cheapest.
Do you buy on the way down, or hope that you can recognize the bottom and go all in then.

Right now the easiest way to make money in the market is ETF funds.
Short for the drops and long for the rises,and even then it takes quit a bit of time to keep up with.
FAZ and FAS work fairly well since they are for financial, and financial seems to be the market movers right now.
It's just a matter of getting into the psychology of the market and recognizing the little triggers that make it move up or down and not being jumpy and selling at loss when the market makes and unexpected swing.
As of now the trend is down so thats where my moneys at.A lot of companies are selling for liquidity and the shorters are forcing the market down,but i keep a small amount for the small upswings.
Going to watch real close what the stimulus decision does,but i think wall street is pissed,so we continue down.

BTW i think i just gave myself a headache.

yeah i have 2 XM tuners, ever since the merger it's fukkin sucked anyway, all the good stations went bye-bye, djs started talkin a lot more and everything has commercials now.....

You're spot on with the ETF funds. I've made money w/ both DUG and SSO over the last few months. I just bought into SSO again, as I think we're going to see a 1-2 day pop from the stimulus package. Now as for Siri I think I'm gonna toss some money at it early next week as a speculative play... but I'm honestly no counting on / expecting to see any results soon.