Rumor has it that the Delphi MyFi - XM Satellite Radio's portable receiver - will be hitting stores, including Best Buy, Sears, Wal-Mart and Circuit City by this weekend as of December 1st.
Comments in Engadget point out that the MyFi has been available at
Circuit City for the past week or two. Their website says that the MyFi would arrive by 12/10 if ordered online.
Just in time to be the ultimate holiday stocking-stuffer.
TimeTrax, famous for releasing satellite radio recording software for the now discontinued XM PCR, has released the TimeTrax Connect. This little device will let owners of XM Direct universal car stereo tuners to automatically save satellite radio broadcasts to personal computers as MP3 or WAV files, to be enjoyed at the listener?s convenience.
Think TiVo for Satellite Radio.
For about fifty bucks, you can get the TimeTrax Connect adapter alone. Or for about a hundred bucks you can get TimeTrax Complete - which includes the TimeTrax Connect adapter, the software, and an XM Direct Radio (XMD1000).
Learn more about how TimeTrax Connect works.
Whoa, Sirius Satellite Radio is going nuts today. They just announced today that they've expanded their broad slate of sports offerings to include Barclays English Premier League soccer. NFL, NCAA and now chalk up the EPL to Sirius' sports lineup.
As Official US Satellite Radio Partner to The Barclays English Premier League for the next three years, SIRIUS will carry a slate of matches each week. For the current season, broadcasts began on November 27 and will continue through the end of the season in May 2005.
Great news for soccer (err 'football') fans.
[Found on Match Night]
SIRIUS Satellite Radio signed a deal to air the men's NCAA basketball tournament through 2007, the latest move made in an attempt to draw customers through sports programming.
Sirius will broadcast every game of the tournament for the next three years, the network said Monday.
With XM inking the 11-year deal with MLB, Sirius with the NFL, and now Sirius again with the NCAA - sports is heating up on satellite radio.
There's a whole lot of articles out there talking about the recent surge in exposure that SIRIUS Satellite Radio is getting, but out of all of them this article by The Journal News sums it up with the most amount of detail.
Comparing not only the new (or upcoming) content, but also the OEM car distribution as well as satellite configuration and receiver technology, this is a great read for those who are still on the fence between the two providers.
In short? Yes, the FCC can. An article by the NAMCT highlights some interesting points that "some people" are trying to get the FCC to do just that.
Specifically, Saul Levine - the owner of KUSR-AM Beverly Hills, Calif.; KTIM-AM Piedmont, Calif.; and classical KMZT-FM Los Angeles - filed a Petition for Rulemaking to amend Part 25 of the FCC?s pending satellite radio rules to include an indecency provision. He also feels that satellite radio is subject to Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Section 1464, which prohibits broadcasting indecent material between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Why does Mr. Levine think he can get away with this? Well, according to his petition, the FCC already has subjected satellite radio to Equal Employment Opportunity and political broadcasting rules and policies. So why stop there? Since the FCC has already put satcasters on notice that it ?may adopt additional public-interest requirements at a later date?, we should just slap them with every restriction possible!
Now, the FCC technically does have the authority to apply the indecency statute to satellite. Because a piece of the spectrum that satellite operators currently broadcast over was granted - not paid for - which places it as part of public airwaves. Since that slice of spectrum is public, the FCC can attach indecency regulations to it. But there's a lot of doubt that the FCC will follow through with this craziness.
Levine eventually has a bit of penis envy as he stated, "When I heard him (Howard Stern) say he was going to destroy radio, that he was going to kill it, I decided I had to fight back to protect the radio industry. I have three stations and over a million listeners a week. . . If they can say dirty words, we want to be able to too." Not that he ever would, he adds. But, "everybody else in the radio industry is running around like scared sheep. I am not going to just sit back."
Better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven eh?
There's no doubt that Sirius' stock has seen a massive jump in the past couple months. With Howard Stern's, followed by Mel Karmazin's, announcements of hopping on board, Sirius has seen more than an 80% gain. But now analysts are starting to take a step back, feeling that Sirius has nearly reached its ceiling - at least for now.
Many casual traders may look at SIRIUS Satellite Radio stock (SIRI) of over $6 and wonder why it doesn't have the potential of reaching XM Satellite Radio's stock (XMSR) of over $35. Fool.com answers this perfectly:
"The concept of shares outstanding isn't all that complicated, so it is alarming to see people buying a stock on the premise that the raw share price is lower than that of a different stock. Would these people be buying XM instead if it declared a 10-for-1 stock split? It's a haunting thought.It's slightly less troubling but still disturbing to see folks who understand that you need to multiply a stock's price by the shares outstanding to arrive at its current market value still ignore the fact that a young company like Sirius also has a ton -- and we're talking literally a couple hundred million -- of additional shares in options and other dilution that will be tacked on as the stock appreciates."
While there's no doubt that Sirius has an incredible future ahead of them, perhaps now is the time to take a step back, and look at the facts instead of the hype.
Sirius Satellite Radio today announced that it has surpassed 800,000 subscribers on November 22nd, and remain on track to reach an estimated one million subscribers by the end of the year.
At the time of writing this, XM Satellite Radio has over 2.9 million subscribers (according to XMFan.com). They are expected to break 3 million subscribers by year's end themselves.
According to the NY Post. Howard Stern's sidekick Robin Quivers is getting her own daytime talk show.
Quivers, who's worked with Stern for 23 years, has inked a deal with Sony Television to develop the talk show, which could launch as early as next fall - and end her partnership with Stern.
According to the Sony announcement, Quivers will continue working with Stern "while developing the series" - but the release says nothing about her plans with Stern once her new show begins.
In an announcement made today - XM Radio has added 2 new music channels available only over it's premium Internet radio service, XM Radio Online:
• The Eye (XM Radio Online Channel 26): Rhythmic Top 40, featuring an exciting mix of contemporary hip hop tracks by artists such as Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Usher, Mario, Destiny's Child, and Chingy.
• enLIGHTen! (XM Radio Online Channel 34): Southern gospel music, featuring inspirational tunes from artists of today and yesterday.
In addition to the new online channel announcement, XM confirmed (as we announced earlier this week) that their online service is now Mac compatable with Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape Navigator browsers on Mac computers with Windows Media Player 9.0 installed.
Rumor has it that Satellite Radio will be the gift of choice this season. Audiographics goes so far as to say
"Both Sirius and XM Satellite Radio are going to have happy holidays, because a satellite radio subscription (and receiver) will be the adult toy this year."Citing an article from Electronic News to back it up.
Rumor or not, why wouldn't satrad be an excellent gift of choice for adults this Holiday Season? With the receivers getting smaller and smaller, the marketing hype and hoopah at full tilt, and the programming getting 'more gooder' everyday - this season is ripe for satellite radio to break out.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review released a general comparison between XM Satellite Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio today. Author Steve Segal documented the entire process of the satellite radio experience: from purchasing the plug-and-play systems to the range of content available for listening.
He stopped short of declaring a 'winner', though from the information he provided you can pretty much make the decision on your own.
Orbitcast will be beginning a multi-series set of articles comparing all aspects of Sirius Satellite Radio vs XM Satellite Radio. These will all be found under the XM vs SIRIUS category.
Didn't get enough of the XM/O&A Army crashing Stern's Rally?
Foundry Music was on scene above Union Square filming the whole event. Out of all the clips, these two are my personal favorites:
UPDATE: You're looking at a post from November 2004. Howard has been on Letterman a couple times since then, but I'm willing to guess that you're looking for video of Stern's latest appearance with Dave. Video of Stern's appearance on Letterman is available here. You're welcome.
Did you miss Howard Stern on David Letterman last night?
No problem, just download the torrent file (BitTorrent Client required) and watch it on your own time.
UPDATE: This new link is 10x faster than the old link and very good quality (commercial free even). Total file size is 57 MB - not bad.
XM Radio Online 'officially' only works on the IE/PC platform, though unofficially they say it may work on other platforms.
Well, according to O'Grady's PowerPage, all you Mac lovers can rejoice as it's now Mac compatible - at least with Safari 1.2.4.
UPDATE: XM Radio Online also works with Firefox on the Mac. (thanks MikeV!)
According to AdAge.com, Mel Karmazin (former COO and President of Viacom) was named the CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio today.
A nasty symbolic blow to Infinity, and a big gain for Sirius.
[Found on atmasphere | endeavors]
XM Satellite Radio and the O&A Army were at the Stern / Sirius Rally in full force armed with XM Satellite Radio protest signs, O&A 'WOW' stickers, t-shirts, hats and the Opie & Anthony/XM Radio van. Met with cheers and boos from the crowd, the O&A Army had a massive presence all day in Union Square and managed to steal at least some of the attention from Howard's show.
The Police didn't like the sticks attached to the protest signs and confiscated them:
Devoted Opie and Anthony fans penetrated the crowd and helped do their part to 'spread the virus':
No sticks? No problem. XM had plenty arms to hold up the signs:
'Frenchy' a regular guest on the O&A Show:
Looking for the Howard Stern Farewell Rally? Check out the photos here.
The stage where Howard Stern was giving away free Sirius radios from:
Truck in the back distributing the Sirius vouchers:
Security was pretty tight, even on the roof!
Up close at the front stage handing out boomboxes to the anxious fans:
A horrible shot of Beth O (Howard's girlfriend):
Just got back from the Howard Stern / Sirius Rally at Union Square. A massive crowd gathered to see Howard, and to pick up their free Sirius Satellite Radios (500 were available) and 20,000 vouchers for free Sirius systems (when you prepay for a one-year subscription).
If you couldn't make it, no problem - just go to www.sirius.com/offer/sternrally and enter in promotion code 263. Select your Sirius system and purchase an annual subscription for $142.25. When prompted, enter in the certificate number HS7436 in the "referral ID" field.
The free system is the Audiovox SIR-PNP2. The offer expires on November 24th, 2004 - so if you want it, get it now.
Pics of this event will be posted shortly. You can find photos of the Howard Stern / Sirius Satellite Radio Rally here.
Orbitcast has learned more details on Howard Stern's Sirius Giveaway at Union Square, NYC today.
The first 500 people to show up will get $300 worth of Sirius Satellite Radio units (and we assume subscription vouchers), and the remaining 20,000 will receive $150 worth of Sirius rebate vouchers for satellite radio subscriptions.
More info to come as news develops.
Howard Stern will be giving away Sirius Satellite Radio units noon today at the Greenmarket area of Union Square, NYC. His announcement stopped just short yesterday of saying he will give away actual radios, calling the gifts "electronic ... turkeys."
Stern's website, Howard Stern.com, gives even less details only hinting towards "gifts" but it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. The Sportster Boombox, valued at $99, is rumored to be the unit of choice but that's still unconfirmed.
Sirius spokeswoman Elise Brown said that whatever Stern is giving away, "There will be thousands of them."
Orbitcast will be at the event and will post more details soon.
Sirius Satellite Radio announced today that Target will feature the Xact XTR1 Sirius Satellite Plug and Play Receiver palm-sized Sirius satellite radio and related accessories. The Xact -- priced at $149 including a universal kit for the car or home -- is SIRIUS' smallest receiver, making it an ideal device for transporting between the car, home and office, as well as for travel. Target will also offer a boom box designed to work with the XTR1, and is including a $25 gift card with each purchase.
Mercedes-Benz and Sirius Satellite Radio announced today the availability of Sirius as a factory-installed option on select 2005 model-year Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
The MRSP price of $699 will include the 14 months of Sirius Satellite Radio service with the fully integrated Mercedes-Benz audio system. This allows the Mercedes-Benz customer to enjoy digital sound and to view content information, such as song title, artist name, and sports scores on the head- unit display.
"I had been expecting the tell-tales of compressed audio: the faint swish-swish-swish, the shaky background instruments, or kind of a weakness in dynamics that are memorably powerful in music formats with stronger, broader signals. The genre of acoustic rock is a particularly good giveaway because acoustic guitars are always the first to sound off. Try as I might, all I heard was great music."
Sirius has it's own set of home satellite radio units, expect reviews between the two shortly.
Here's your chance to win the world's first personal XM Satellite Radio - the Delphi XM MyFi? - plus six months of XM service. (A $450 value!)
A New Winner Each Week!
To qualify, subscribe to any of XM's premium services (High Voltage, Playboy Radio or XM Radio Online) between November 15th and December 31st, and you'll be entered in the weekly MyFi drawing automatically. One entry per premium service on your account. It's that simple.
Already a premium subscriber? Great news, you are automatically entered to win each week as long as your account remains active. Now is the perfect time to try another XM service.
Weekly drawings start on November 22nd. Don't delay.
No purchase necessary. See Official Rules (PDF).
XM Satellite Radio, will deliver the gift of holiday music to its listeners from coast to coast throughout the holiday season.
XM will devote four of its digital radio channels to holiday music beginning Thanksgiving Day, November 25. Each channel will feature a different style of holiday music without commercial interruption 24 hours a day through December 27:
• XM's beautiful-music channel Sunny (XM Channel 24) will play traditional and orchestral holiday classics by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and other favorites.
• The Heart (XM Channel 23) will be renamed Holly during the holidays, and feature contemporary music of the season from artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, and the Jackson 5.
• The country channel Nashville (XM Channel 11) will offer a "Music City Christmas," playing holiday tunes from country artists of today and yesterday, including Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Tammy Wynette, and Jim Reeves.
• Special X-Mas (XM Channel 83) will serve up a mix of holiday novelty songs, oddball parodies, and rock covers of holiday classics. Special X-Mas will air in place of the disco channel Chrome.
The holiday music channels and Chrome will broadcast through the holidays on XM's Internet radio service XM Radio Online, and all of the channels will return to regular programming after the holidays.
Simmons has signed Sirius Satellite Radio to a multi-year agreement for Simmons Market Research Bureau's National Consumer Survey.
Frank Giovinazzi of the American International Automobile Dealers wrote an 'open letter' to Howard Stern fans preaching that "Radio is dead. Long live radio!".
An interesting note of the article is that the conversion rates from free trial period (offered by many car manufacturers) to paid subscription is currently running high. The article notes that satellite radio hasn?t even reached critical mass yet.
While far from an 'open letter', this editorial provides an interesting insight into the development of satellite radio and it's potential for evolving into a common household technology.
XM Satellite Radio has announced it will broadcast live concerts from two of the nation's most famous music venues -- the Blue Note and the B.B. King Blues Club in New York City.
As part of a multi-year agreement, XM is airing a wide variety of shows from the celebrated Manhattan concert halls on several of XM's commercial-free music channels. Concerts include performances by jazz legend Chick Corea, R&B superstar Aaron Neville, reggae master Jimmy Cliff, and rock legend Alan Parsons.
"We're thrilled to be broadcasting live shows from the Blue Note and the B.B. King Blues Club, which are two of the greatest places to hear live music anywhere in the country," said Lee Abrams, Chief Programming Officer for XM Satellite Radio.
NY Post, CNNMoney: Howard Stern is claiming he's being "jerked around" and "threatened" by his bosses says he might start on satellite radio a lot sooner than Jan. 1, 2006.
"A buddy of mine who shall remain nameless says . . . Viacom is trying to get Sirius [Satellite Radio] to pay off my contract and then I would leave early 'cause Sirius is anxious to get the show started," Stern told listeners yesterday.
Infinity and Sirius declined comment, although Sirius CEO Joe Clayton told analysts last month that a contract buyout "is indeed a possibility."
"That might end up happening," said Stern.
While the XM Satellite Radio subscriber is paying $10/month, XM Satellite Radio is currently paying $89 per customer (down from $127 a year ago).
Total operating expenses, which include R&D and marketing costs, rose 31% to $166 million, in the quarter.
The cost per customer is defines as total costs divided by subscribers.
Pioneer today unveiled the new AVIC-N2 with XM NavTraffic.
Pioneer's next generation AVIC-N2 multi-function navigation system keep drivers informed of detailed traffic conditions 24 hours a day with XM NavTraffic. Pioneer's system is the first aftermarket in-car navigation system to offer satellite-based traffic information using XM NavTraffic, which displays traffic incidents and road flow conditions on a motorized 6.5-inch touch screen monitor.
The system, unveiled today at the annual SEMA Show devoted to automotive specialty products, graphically communicates traffic incidents by means of traffic icons to quickly identify road events relative to the vehicle's location, keeping drivers in touch with their surroundings at all times. In advance, the system suggests alternate routes around major traffic incidents and heavily congested roads.
Today's Chicago Sun-Times article, When the FCC gags come off, highlights what I consider to be the most advantageous aspect of satellite radio: unrestricted content.
Highlighting XM Satellite Radio's show Opie and Anthony, Sirius Satellite Radio's current hip-hop 'shocker' Shade 45, and of course the upcoming debut of Howard Stern in January 2006 - the underlying concept stands out: you can finally listen to radio in the same format that you speak with each other.
It has less to do with how 'shocking' these 'shock jocks' can get, and more on freeing up the ability to listen to content in an Adult format.
WLS-AM (890) afternoon host Roe Conn says, "There is the 'Sopranos' school of thought. Which means that you can finally sound on the air like everybody around you sounds. In the office, people are always dropping the F-bomb or the S-word or the MF. ... So it sort of widens the boundaries to make you sound like everybody else is sounding."
"It's all about being able to discuss sometimes adult subject matter plain and clear," Anthony Cumia of Opie & Anthony says, "without having to go through all the ritual that you would have to go through on traditional broadcast radio just to make the point, just to get the conversation started, to get people up to speed as to what you're talking about."
It's about time!!
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission opened a hearing today into domestic satellite radio licence proposals. This will spark a complicated debate about how to impose Canadian content rules on technologies that know no boundaries, who controls the airwaves, and how best to support and promote Canadian performers.
There are three players in this debate:
Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. - a joint venture with the largest U.S. satellite radio firm XM Satellite Radio.
Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Standard Radio Inc. - joined with Sirius Satellite Radio.
CHUM Ltd. - partnered with Astral Media. The CHUM Subscription Radio Canada differs from the others because it plans to distribute signals from land-based transmitters, and it would be available only in the larger Candian cities.
To add to the confusion, the CHUM Subscription is different in that the technlogy isn't the same approach as XM Radio or Sirius. CHUM signals will be received on radios equipped to pick up digital radio transmissions - different from those designed for satellite signals.
Part of the debate is the growing Candian "grey market" with satellite radio - Canadian residents who use U.S. based postal address to gain access to satellite radio. Brian Sharwood, a principal at communications consultant Seaboard Group in Toronto, said the grey-market threat is, in fact, significant, and he predicts there will be many illegal users of the U.S. Sirius and XM services if they don't get a Canadian licence.
?Right now, XM and Sirius are playing nice,? he said
One issue that is bound to be raised at the hearing - of course - is the control and monitoring of questionable or offensive content. With Howard Stern coming to Sirius in 2006, and Opie & Anthony already shocking the XM Radio waves, this is bound to be a heated aspect of consideration for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
Business Week's recent article, Satellite Radio Shoots The Moon, highlights last month's flurry of recent activity involving the two major Satellite Radio providers. With Sirius' much publicized $500mil for Howard Stern, and XM's counterattack of $650mil for Major League Baseball - both companies committed to over $1 Billion in programming in a single month.
Amazing considering neither has yet to pull in a dime in profit:
"As if a reminder was necessary, on Oct. 27 Sirius reported that its third-quarter net loss widened by nearly 60% to $169.4 million."
Since analysts don't expect either XM or Sirius to generate a profit until 2008 at the earliest, it's going to be a long haul of spending and promoting.
(or just friend me)
