When I asked Sirius whether I could have a tour of Sirius Headquarters in NYC, I have to be honest that I was pretty much expecting a "thanks, but no thanks" response. Afterall, let's be honest, most bloggers really don't get the attention from corporations that say, USA Today would.
But it seems that the times are changing because rather than getting blown off, I immediately got a very open invite and the experience only got better from there.
Talks of a truce seem to be filling the combative satellite radio space. XM and SIRIUS to play nice against Terrestrial?
Read the XM Talks Sirius Truce article on TheStreet.com
I almost don't even need to post about this as every baseball fan already has their dial pointing to XM channels 176 through 190. But in case you missed it, XM is broadcasting LIVE, play-by-play MLB opening day game broadcasts. Couldn't have had a better opener with Sox vs Yankees on Sunday (though I'm sure West Coasters are just sick of all that).
Anyway, check out the schedule here.
Sirius is hittin the hoops this weekend with live coverage of the Men's Final Four games at the 2005 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship in St. Louis.
On Saturday evening (April 2) SIRIUS Sports will broadcast the semi-final contests beginning at 5:30pm (Eastern) with a pre-game show, immediately followed by the Illinois versus Louisville game, then the North Carolina versus Michigan State game at around 8:45pm.
Both games will be heard on SIRIUS Sports Action, channel 123.
Then you got Monday (April 4) with a special Championship Game preview show from 6pm to 8pm also on on SIRIUS Sports Action, channel 123 with Dave Sims and Dave Gavitt hosting the show. Finally you get the good stuff, starting with a pre-game show, of live coverage of the 2005 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Game beginning at 8:30pm.
(go Illinois!)
Hey cool, check this out - XM Satellite Radio put the new MyFi / MLB Commercial on their website today. Awesome, now I don't need to post like last time.
Anthrax (no, not the disease, the band!) is going to hold a press conference at SIRIUS Satellite Radio's national broadcast center tomorrow at 2pm. They're planning to announce their reunion, new music releases and future plans for the band. Also supposed to talk about their support for Slave To The Metal Foundation's fight against misuse of heavy metals and proposed mandatory anthrax vaccine testing on soldiers and civilians.
The Press conference will be hosted by SIRIUS metal guru Jos? Mangin and will be broadcast live on SIRIUS Hard Attack 27, immediately followed by the "Spreading the Anthrax" weekend-long Anthrax music special on Hard Attack.
Wow, what a crazy day today. On a whim, I met up with Mike Kaltshnee from Hacking Netflix today at Grand Central so we could get together with Steve Rubel (Micro Persuasion) - which in of itself would've been cool because I love Steve's blog - but low-and-behold we bump into Dave Winer of Scripting News. Off we go to do an impromtu Podcast at Starbucks. HUH?! I guess Dave and Steve had this little Podcast thing setup but I had absolutely no clue, and pretty much sat there dumbfounded.
This afternoon I'm going to Sirius Headquarters to do a photo tour they invited me on. Very cool. I'm hoping Dave Winer can come along and maybe we could have audio commentary of the whole thing, but who knows. I'll post the photos and anything fun from this photo tour of Sirius as soon as I can...
Jim Louderback has a great article from PC Magazine on Satellite Radio today. It's a bit long, but tells a great story of how he got sold on the benefits of satrad.
(On a side note, I'm bringing my camera to NYC again tomorrow... anyone wanna guess why?)
A loyal Orbitcast reader pointed me to a wonderful source for speculation. Aparently there's a survey (see the screen capture to your right) being done on select XM Subscribers regarding some future features XM is considering.
The questions listed are very interesting indeed:
"Ability to record XM programming, then move it to a PC for subsequent listening, burning to a CD, or downloading to an MP3 player."
Hmmm.. this smells exactly of the famed XM Patent from a little while ago. Imagine being able to save (time-shift) songs for free onto your XM2go device, and for a fee you can listen to them on your computer or MP3 player (or Skypod?).
Very exciting.
[Read more on XM411]
A great article in Bloomberg today about Satellite Radio a distruptive thorn in the sides of Clear Channel and Viacom.
A great snippet:
...satellite radio is where cable television was in the 1970s, a business with few subscribers compared with the traditional broadcast networks. Yet it has the potential to disrupt an industry, says Randall Rothenberg, 49, chief marketing officer at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. consultants in New York.Cable TV subscribers accounted for 68 percent of all viewers in 2004, up from 8 percent in 1970, Nielsen Media Research says. Satellite radio service, which XM Satellite inaugurated in September 2001, will have taken four years to capture 4 percent of the market this year, while cable TV needed 13 years.
"Something that gets 7 million subscribers in the blink of an eye is not an inconsequential entrant in the market," Rothenberg says.
Awesome. Read more here.
For those who didn't catch Gary Parsons on CNBC Squawk Box, don't worry about it. It wasn't anything special as we had hoped. Oh well, we'll continue listening to the Bank of America webcast for juicy bits.
Sirenza Microdevices has begun production of a new ultra low-profile SDARS antenna.
This new SDARS antenna will initially be packaged with satellite radio receivers "manufactured by an Asian radio supplier under an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) arrangement with a leading U.S. digital satellite radio provider."
Hmmm... which Asian radio supplier has an OEM arrangement with a leading U.S. digital satellite radio provider?
The one thing I hate about satellite radio antennas is how much they stick out like a sore thumb. Here you are with your brand new Terk XMicro2 or XM Roady Micro Antenna, and it looks like crap against your beautiful car. Enter Color Match Antenna.
These guys produce and sell satellite radio antennas that are color matched exactly to your car, and I gotta say this is a great idea.
Each order is custom-painted, using the premium Spies Hecker auto paint made by Dupont, in a professional body shop. Color Match Antenna ensures completely accurate color matches based upon the manufacturer, paint color code and the VIN number of your car. Just enter in your VIN into the Color Match Antenna website and you're good to go.
As soon as I saw these antennas I started thinking about how Tuners would love this. If anyone wants a custom antenna, its them. Check out the Mopar orange on to the right. Very sweet. But many people with luxury cars would want this too. If you look at the testimonials on their site, there's a bunch of before & after shots that really demonstrate the visual difference.
There's also a whole world of possibilities to have fun with these little guys.
This is a pic of a prototype American Flag on the antenna. The amount of detail that's possible is very cool.
Even cooler is that the company began actively marketing their products only three weeks ago they've already had dozens of customers who've gladly giving testimonials of the quality of the paint. If you want to see some photos of the painting process, check out their gallery.
Definitely some neat stuff and I'm glad to do everything I can to let people know about this service. So much in fact that I had some antennas sent to me so I can test the durability of the paintjob. They really are much more gorgeous in person! There's a beautiful lime green antenna that I'll be posting very soon.
Go check out colormatchantenna.com and see for yourself.
Ed Christian will cancel syndicated shows that also air on XM/Sirius, but as The Future of Radio points out, this will probably be a catalyst to spur the development of more satellite-only programming and give people even more of a reason to migrate to satellite.
It's amazing to think that Terrestrial is now trying the 'exclusive content' route - this coming from the industry who has a playlist of about 200 songs.
Kelly McNeill over at osRadio has a similar idea as mine for delivering Podcasts over Satellite Radio. And while I agree with the general thought, my nly problem is there's a massive barrier to entry for Apple to overcome. Sending birds up into orbit and setting up the infrastructure for delivering satellite radio isn't a walk in the park and I don't see Apple going that route anytime soon.
Oh well, it's a neat idea tho.
The rumor mill is abuzz about this, but it does seem that XM Satellite Radio is up to something and we'll find out about it tomorrow.
Gary Parsons (XM Chairman) will be featured at the Banc of America Securities Media, Telecommunications and Entertainment Conference (webcast link here) tomorrow, March 30, 2005 at 08:00 AM (ET). One day before Q1 ends.
That in itself raises an eyebrow. Even more tantilizing is that we just got word that Gary Parsons will appear on CNBC tomorrow, though we still don?t know when exactly. UPDATE: Gary Parsons will be on CNBC Squawk Box, 7:00 AM EST
This is the best indicator for news because everytime he appears on CNBC, XM releases something big.
4 Million subscriptions? XM standard-on-all-GM-cars? Hard say just yet. More info to come as news develops...
I'm looking for any and all Satellite Radio bloggers to add to my soon to be rollin' blogroll. If you have a blog that relates to satellite radio, or if you cover Stern, O&A, Dr. Laura, Bob Edwards, Eminem, Lance Armstrong, or even Coolguy - whatever, I want to see it - so email me or post a comment here with a link to your site and I'll check it out.
According to Sirius' contract with Howard Stern, Stern will only work 4-day weeks. Right now at Infinity, Howard only gets 8-weeks of vacation but once he moves to Sirius next year he'll get 10-weeks of vacation per year.
42 weeks @ 4 days a week = 168 work days a year
And that's not counting holidays. Gotta hand it to Howard, he got the deal of the century.
[Link]
A reader at The Gripe Line Weblog had paid $499 for Sirius' lifetime subscription, recently discovered that he would need to pay an additional $75 to transfer the subscription from one satellite radio to another.
See, the "lifetime" agreement isn't for the customer's lifetime, but rather for that of the radio. For the record, this is clearly pointed out on Sirius' site in the promotional text:
Subscribe for the lifetime of your radio! Yes really, we're not kidding. Pay $499.99 once, forget about bills altogether, and enjoy SIRIUS for a long, long time to come. (Offer ends June 30, 2005.)
And paragraph 5 (C)(4) of their terms and conditions:
Transfer Fee: If you wish to transfer your Subscription to a different Sirius Receiver during the term of a prepaid subscription or committed subscription period, we may charge you a transfer fee of up to $75.00. You may not transfer a lifetime Subscription to a different Sirius Receiver.
So you really can't fault them for not being upfront about it. But you have to wonder, as guru-of-all-gurus Seth Godin points out, why would you want to alienate the highest spending (and thus the most loyal) customers? Lifestyle subscribers are stuck with old technology while their monthly friends enjoy the latest and greatest in gadgets?
Doesn't make sense.
Time Trax Technologies has submitted an Amicus Curiae brief ("friend of court" brief) to the US Supreme Court along with several emerging technology companies and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in support of Grokster. A "friend of the court" brief is simply a legal brief filed to support or oppose a party in litigation. The brief argues that tightening copyright infringement requirements on technology like Grokster will greatly deter growth and competition in the United States.
The Amicus brief submitted to the court was signed by ten companies potentially affected by the ruling and asks the Court to refrain from assigning liability for product use to its manufacturer based on an immeasurable definition of "primary use." A victory for Grokster would open the gates for continued development in this field.
The Supreme Court is hearing the case, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster, tomorrow (Tuesday, March 29, 2005). So far, two Federal Courts have agreed with Grokster. Grokster has successfully argued that because it operates on a decentralized network, it cannot be held to the same standards as Napster. MGM must convince at least 5 justices of the US Supreme Court that two prior Federal Court decisions were wrong for not finding Grokster libel for copyright infringement.
I knew that Clear Channel was entering the Internet Radio arena, but what I didn't pick up was that that they plan on Podcasting as part of their new Web strategy.
Clear Channel will make five-minute, ad-supported segments available for download from station sites (and they have over 1,200 to choose from). Z100 Phonetap and morning drive-time shows are among the offerings the company plans to make available as downloads.
Read more:
I Love Radio | The Future of Radio
Now, I could care less if CC is successful with this attempt (ad supported 5 minute nuggets are pretty much useless to me) but this is a huge achievement for the Podcasting front. It makes the format legit. I'd like to see the Satellite Radio providers come on board with this progressive medium. During our awesome discussion about whether Internet Radio will be bigger than Satellite Radio, I really started to wonder if XM or SIRIUS would entertain the thought of delivering Podcasts through a dedicated station. A lofty thought, I know. But think about it.
XM and SIRIUS have an audience that is looking for specialized content. Want Tech Talk? Sure no problem! Want to listen to Dawn and Drew or the Daily Source Code? Just subscribe through the XM/SIRIUS Podcast interface. Why not use the Birds to stream a "my Podcasts" channel to your XM2go or ReGo unit? All the infrastructure is there already, all the satcasters need to do is create an interface for each listener to subscribe through.
I dunno. Maybe I'm smoking something, but to me it's the ultimate in custom radio.
The Daily Herald has a cute lil' article about Satellite Radio's adoption, with some nice local flare about people and businesses seeing the impact of satellite's increasing awareness.
Alright there gearslammers, get out of the granny-lane and stop dodging those aligators, cause you don't need to be a mud duck no more! Contract Freighters, Inc just annouced they'll give XM Satellite Radio free it its more than 2,500 drivers.
CFI is factory-equipping all their new trucks with XM Satellite Radio receivers. All CFI drivers will receive XM subscriptions, whether they drive a truck with an XM receiver or they own a plug-and-play XM radio for earlier-model vehicles.
(trucker lingo found here)
An article from Forbes points out that Merrill Lynch said some interesting things about the future of the satellite radio industry based on some jointly released data by Arbitron and Edison Media Research.
"We continue to forecast that satellite radio will take a decade to accumulate 40 million subscribers (15% of the terrestrial radio audience) while terrestrial radio revenue should grow in-line with GDP," Merrill said. I personally feel this forecast is low considering the number of automobile manufacturers helping penetration. Deals like the Hyundai offering XM as standard equipment are going to rapidly increase the number of subscribers at a ridiculous pace.
But then Merrill talks about how Satellite Radio awareness is on the rise with Sirius Satellite Radio "taking the lead." Awareness of Sirius rose to 54% in January 2005 from 28% in January 2004, while awareness of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings rose to 50% from 41%. "We note that Sirius surpassed XM for the first time in this category, partially helped by its high-profile announcements of Howard Stern's and Mel Karmazin's decision to join Sirius," Merrill said, noting that 2 million to 3 million incremental subscribers attributable to Stern "is achievable."
Not sure how much Mel coming on board has to do with consumer brand awareness as most radio listeners have no clue who he is. He definitely had a huge effect on awareness for those on Wall Street, but as for someone recognizing Sirius over XM? That all goes to Howard.
If I was XM, I'd be having a shitfit over the Xlive XM-200 and XM-300.
Not only is it ugly as sin, but it doesn't even have anything to do with Satellite Radio.
But it does feature an FM tuner, radio recording, supports MP3, WMA, Line-in recording, CD sync. Yep. It's in the same industry from a lawyer's perspective.
I smell copywrite infringement.
Or at least sue 'em for slander/libel for releasing such a godawful ugly device with the letters "XM" in there.
Weird. Barely anything newsworthy today. I gotta get some real work done, so I'll leave everyone with a parting thought...
Yes. It's completely off topic.
Well, in leu of our nice little discussion on Internet vs Satellite the Daily News has an interesting article about Clear Channel entering into the Web Radio arena.
Lotsa food for thought.
A reader pointed me to a great blog, The Future of Radio, that has an interesting post about the possibility of Internet Radio being bigger than Satellite Radio eventually - at least according to a report from Bridge Ratings.
Scary stuff for Satellite if you think about it. Looking at the Digital Audio Market Projections, it shows Internet Radio skyrocketing to unbelievable penetration. Is it way off?
You tell me.
So all in all NYIAS was pretty cool. I was disappointed with the XM Sponsored Urban Tuner Tent though - it wasn't open when I was at the Press Preview. So I didn't get to see the some of the more extreme audio shit that I was hoping on seeing. From what I heard, the Urban Tuner Tent would be finished on Friday, so I'll see if I can make my way back to the show soon to get some shot of that. I never did catch Joe Clayton again, but there's always another time. Another thing that stinks was that Ziggy from MyRadioStore.com was at the show and I didn't get the chance to meet up with him.
XM's booth completely revolved around interactivity. From a users perspective, you can hang out in the XM booth as long as you want. It encouraged you to. With the car-like booths where you can "test drive" XM, and the interactive listening stations that direct sound only in your direction, you just wanted to play all day. I really did love the maps of the Javits Center that XM gave out, pointing out exactly how many cars at the show featured XM Satellite Radio in at least one of their vehicles.
SIRIUS' booth really looked beautiful, though I wish it was more interactive. You could sit in the Volvo, Bimmer, and the 300M - which was great and all, but that's it. All the devices on the wall were nice to show what's available, but I really wish it had a more hands-on approach. But in place of interactivity, they opted to bring in the guest appearances - which is very cool. When I was there, Meg Griffin was hosting a show.
Here's a schedule of all the other Guest Stars appearing at SIRIUS' NYIAS booth:
Sheryl Crow will be the Guest DJ on Armstrong Radio, Lance Armstrong's SIRIUS Satellite Radio show on Faction channel 28, in a special live broadcast from Spain, where Lance is currently training to kick some more ass at Tour de France.
As guest DJ, Sheryl will select and talk about the music played on the show. The show will air Sunday, March 27 at 3 pm ET (repeated at 9 pm ET).
Land Rover plans to offer SIRIUS as a factory-installed option on the 2006 Model Year Range Rover and Range Rover Sport in July of this year.
Both vehicles will come with factory-installed head units that display artist, song title and category when playing SIRIUS.
The Range Rover will also feature a touch-screen interface. Saweet.
So here's a few shots of the XM Booth. The first one actually shows how close XM and SIRIUS were to each other.
Much more to come.. I needa get away from the laptop and go after Joe. :)
Damn, big day. Just got word that Jaguar plans to offer SIRIUS as a dealer-installed accessory in the following 2005 model year vehicle lines beginning this May:
* 2005 X-Type
* 2005 X-Type Wagon
* 2005 S-Type
* 2005 XJ Sedan
Jaguar is additionally planning to offer SIRIUS as a port-installed option on the same models for the 2006 model year in the near future.
Pricing will be made available at a later date.
So I hit up the SIRIUS booth and XM booth first. Got some neat shots of both. Here's a few shots from the SIRIUS booth.
While I was taking these pics, I turned around to see Joe Clayton, but he escaped before I was able to get any shots off. I'll go stalk him for a bit to see if I can get a photo.
And the hits keep on coming.
SIRIUS Satellite Radio will be offered as a factory-installed option on the next-generation 2006 Mercedes-Benz M-Class Sports Utility vehicle. The factory-installed SIRIUS option will be available beginning next month.
Mercedes also plans to offer SIRIUS as a factory-installed option on six additional 2006 model year vehicles later this year and four 2007 model year vehicles next year.
The SIRIUS factory-installed option on the M-Class will include a 6-month bundled subscription and is expected to have a manufacturers suggested retail price of $500.
OK, so it seems like I was wrong, I predicted that Hyundai was going to go to Sirius - because news just arrived that Hyundai will be the first automaker to launch XM as standard, factory-installed equipment in every vehicle across its entire model line-up.
Starting in 2006, XM radios will be factory-installed in all Hyundai models, beginning with the all-new Sonata, Santa Fe, Elantra, and the upcoming replacement for the XG350 premium sedan.
By year-end 2006, 75% of Hyundai's sales volume will be XM-equipped, with the remaining models following quickly thereafter, totaling well over 500,000 units by 2007.
This is huge. Not just for XM, but for the entire satellite radio industry. Being included as standard-equipment not only exposes every consumer to the benefits of satellite, but legitimizes the medium as not just a luxury. Hyundai is really "the people's car" (sorry Volkswagen), and including something that used to be a luxury for no extra cost to the consumer, is a HUGE step in the perception of what Satellite Radio is to the average joe.
Alright! I'm here blogging LIVE at the Press Preview of the New York International Autoshow, and I gotta say this is some pretty cool shit. Not just being here and having the ability to post directly from the floor, which I feel is part of the essence and beauty of blogging. But the fact that NYIAS has actually recognized Blogs as being a legitimate form of the Media. A few years back, I'd just be considered a lunatic with a website, but it seems that we've finally reached a point where bloggers are taken seriously. That's very cool, and my hats off to the show organizers for finally recognizing this growing medium.
So enough of that. Here I am armed with my Dell 700m and Canon EOS Digital Rebel SLR, so high-resolution pics galore will come downstream very shortly. I was also planning on having this be my debut Orbitcast Podcast, but as luck has it - I've lost my voice. Which would make for awful radio. So I guess I'll just have to wait for another cool event (like maybe next week? wink wink, jab jab) to take a swing at Podcasting. Stay tuned for more on that.
Anyway, I'm going to hit up the XM Satellite Radio sponsored Urban Tuner Tent first. Then make my way up to the Crystal Palace to check out both Sirius Satellite Radio's booth and XM Radio's booth. Then I'll go through all the separate auto manufacturers' booths and see what sort of representation Satellite Radio has from each. In between all these stops, I'll be uploading the photos I take and any info and cool stuff I encounter.
So that's that. Enough typing - on with the show!
SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) today announced the offering of $250 million in aggregate principal amount of Senior Notes due 2015 to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and outside the United States in compliance with Regulation S under the Securities Act. The notes will be senior obligations of SIRIUS.
Based upon its current plans, before giving effect to the proceeds of the offering, SIRIUS has sufficient cash on hand to cover its estimated funding needs through cash flow breakeven, the point at which the company's revenues are sufficient to fund expected operating expenses, capital expenditures, working capital requirements, interest and principal payments, and taxes. SIRIUS expects cash flow breakeven to occur in 2007.
SIRIUS intends to use approximately $63.1 million of the net proceeds from the offering to redeem all of its outstanding 15% Senior Secured Discount Notes due 2007 and 14?% Senior Secured Notes due 2009. The balance of the net proceeds will be used to pay the expenses of the offering and for general corporate purposes.
The securities have not been registered under the Securities Act, or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration, except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws.
This announcement is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy any of these securities, and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.
Orbitcast will be going to this year's New York Internation Auto Show this week to play with all the toys, take lots of pics, and blog directly from the show floor. Even more gooder, I'll have Press Access, and will be able to relay all the fun stuff to everyone before the show even opens up (as much as I'm legally allowed to, of course).
This year's NYIAS media registration is sponsored by none other than Sirius Satellite Radio. XM Radio is sponsoring the Urban Tuner & Specialty Vehicle Salon which should be kickass to see. And both XM and SIRIUS will be up in the Crystal Palace.
Press Preview at NYIAS begins on Wednesday, so keep checking here for updates and good stuff.
So some of you have been asking what exactly this new Connect and Play technology from XM Radio really is. I posted the original announcement from CES but really did little to explain the whole deal to many. So here goes.
The photo above is the guts of Connect and Play technology. The chip that makes a receiver an "XM-Ready" receiver. Check out a super-sized version of the XM Connect-and-Play chip photo if you really want to. So when you have an XM-Ready device, you simply need to plug an XM Connect-and-Play home antenna (pictured to your right) into the receiver and activate the service to receive XM's digital radio channels. The XM Connect-and-Play antenna is expected to cost $49.99 (that's MSRP.. it'll probably be cheaper from certain retailers).
Using XM's new-fangled chipset technology as well as their new proprietary chip and signaling protocol, the XM Connect-and-Play antenna is capable of receiving XM's satellite and terrestrial signals as well as channel tuning, decoding and audio transmission. Meaning that the antenna is the only accessory needed to get XM through an XM-Ready audio system. You really don't need any other accessories at all.
The beauty of all this, is the size of the chip. It's tiny. And cheap. Devices that otherwise wouldn't be able to receive satellite radio now can. Such as clock radios, DVD players, or even possibly a.... Skypod . :)
We've just learned that Yamaha and XM Satellite Radio will bring to market the first XM-Ready home entertainment products available in early April.
Yamaha will manufacture four new receivers and several new home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) systems with XM's Connect-and-Play technology designed to integrate XM into a broad range of home entertainment products.
Now all you need to do is simply plug in the XM Connect-and-Play home antenna into the XM-Ready Yamaha AV receiver and activate the service to be live. Nothing else is required, no accessories, no installation... nothing.
Yamaha's line of XM-Ready receivers include two 6.1 channel receivers, the RX-V457 (85W x 6) and RX-V557 (90W x 6), and two 7.1 channel receivers, the RX-V657 (95W x 7) and RX-V757 (100W x 7) pictured in this article.
The receivers come with all of the latest surround sound formats, with Yamaha's proprietary YPAO System featured on the RX-V657 and RX-V757, which automatically analyzes the acoustics of your room and adjusts the speaker parameters to provide the optimum sound at the listening position.
Yamaha will also release four XM-Ready receivers from their HTR-series with features similar to RX-V series. The HTR series will be available in April from $349.95 to $849.95. Yamaha will also introduce several XM-Ready HTIB solutions from its YHT line of products.
The NY Post ran an article today about Stern planning a "farewell tour" that will be "the biggest tailgate party in the history of this country" when he abandons terrestrial radio later this year.
"I'm coming to town. I'm ready to go. Let me out of here," Stern told listeners Friday, promising a coast-to-coast motorcade of buses bearing "the hottest chicks in the country" and various rock bands.
Howard fed to the speculation that Viacom won't wait until January 1, 2005 to take him off the air. "It's gonna be unbelievable - I'm telling you, the day they throw me off, it happens the next day," he said.
"I'm really gonna be with the people, and any hot chicks I meet on the road are allowed to be in the buses, and I'll collect them all over the country.
"By the time I get to California, it'll be busloads of, like, 5,000 of the hottest chicks in the country," Stern vowed.
Howard Stern has been playing nice ever since he was forced to tone down mentions of Sirius Satellite Radio by Infinity. Now instead of saying "Sirius" he simply refers to his future employer as "uh uh uh" - but everyone knows what he's talking about. Though I doubt Viacom is going to let Howard Stern go before his contract expires, the speculation he's able to generate will only feed into the hype even further. Love him or hate him, with this farewell tour, he'll definitely generate publicity for himself and Sirius, as only Howard can.
Rolling Stone's recent article Satellite Radio Rocks Out briefly talks about the decline of Rock and Roll on FM, and how it's of special interest to both SIRIUS and XM Satellite Radio (ahem, Liquid Metal?!).
Of course, terrestrial radio executives are quick to dismiss the threat of Satellite Radio, saying they're unconcerned by satellite's comparatively tiny numbers. "It's a blip," says David Field (CEO of Enterco - the fourth-largest radio conglomerate) while smoking his pipe and sipping fine brandy from his snifter.
...Big Radio is in for a fucking surprise.
18-34 year olds are Satellite Radio's #1 age group for current subscribers and also for those planning on buying in the next 6 months according to BIGresearch's March Consumer Intentions and Actions survey of over 7,000 consumers.
The majority of those 35+ say they don't plan on buying/subscribing to satellite radio at this time. These age groups also tend to be less likely to be current subscribers. Personally this isn't really a big surprise. Satellite Radio is still essentially a new technology, and the younger demographic is much quicker to adopt to new tech than older gens. So where's the surprise?
4.2% of consumers 18+ said they currently subscribe to one of the satellite radio services and 2.5% said they are planning to within the next 6 months. An additional 16.1% said they plan to subscribe someday. Of those people who said they plan to subscribe, 28.7% said they would subscribe to Sirius, 16.7% said XM and 54.6% were undecided about which service they would choose. This is very interesting because it shows that Sirius' marketing efforts are definitely attracting the younger demographic better than XM.
[Link]
Sirius Satellite Radio expects to sign an agreement with ex-CEO, now Chairman of the Board, Joe Clayton under which it will pay him a 1.05 million dollar severance in June.
Sirius said it also plans to accelerate the vesting of restricted shares held by Clayton, who stepped down as its chief executive last year, replaced by Mel Karmazin.
Last November Sirius had already granted Clayton options for 2 million common shares. The company at the time said its board also authorized further negotiations. In its annual report, Sirius said the anticipated $1.05 million severance payment to Clayton arises from these further negotiations.
In addition to the severance, Sirius also expects to offer Clayton a bonus for his work this year, according to its report filed late Wednesday with the SEC. Sirius said it sees reimbursing Clayton for his "reasonable" living expenses (ahem!) in New York City, including rent, through May 2005, and some travel expenses.
damn.
Alt rock music personality Matt Pinfield has joined Sirius Satellite Radio's on-air staff.
An alternative rock radio veteran, former MTV programming executive and VJ and current Columbia Records executive, Matt Pinfield hosts the new music program Matt Pinfield Plays Whatever He Wants.
?It?s so great to be here at SIRIUS, getting to play whatever I want - deep album tracks, new imports, indies I love and even exceptional unsigned artists. It?s why I got into radio in the first place, and I?m proud to be a part of the SIRIUS family,? Pinfield said.
Matt Pinfield Plays Whatever He Wants can be heard Sundays from 5 to 9 pm ET on commercial-free alternative rock channel Alt Nation 21.
SIRIUS Satellite Radio?s Shade 45, will present two new cutting-edge music programs hosted by DJ Muggs and DJ Tony Touch.
DJ Muggs will host Mashup Mondays (Mondays from 10 pm to 12 midnight ET). DJ Muggs? new show on Shade 45 will feature his exclusive, original mashups as well those from the best mashup DJs from around the world during Mashup Mondays.
DJ Tony Touch will host Toca Tuesdays (Tuesdays from 8 pm to 12 midnight ET) on Shade 45. "Look for my show to feature the vintage Tony Touch mixtape formula: exclusive freestyles, world premieres, celebrity guests and other special surprises," said Touch.
The PGA TOUR and XM Satellite Radio today announced a long-term partnership, which includes exclusive XM broadcasts of PGA TOUR events, as well as sales and rentals of portable XM2go radios at PGA TOUR tournament courses.
Beginning this summer, the PGA TOUR Network (XM Channel 146) will air live tournament coverage each week, plus daily programs designed for golf enthusiasts.
As part of the XM-PGA TOUR agreement, fans who attend select TOUR tournaments will be able to buy or rent a portable XM2go radio to hear the live coverage at the golf course.
Now THAT's cool. XM2go units available for rent at golf courses is a great additional revenue stream, and the best way to sell your product is to let people interact with it. Great move.
I gotta say, I love the new BMW 3-Series. Whether you're a fan of Chris Bangle's design concepts or not, you have to admit that the upcoming 3-Series is going to continue the legacy that it started. And with it's unveiling, BMW wants to make sure they make a huge splash for this corporate cash-cow - so they're going to hit the market, and hit it hard.
On March 26th, BMW will kick off a historic grassroots 44-day cross-country tour dubbed "3 Across America" to celebrate the launch of the new 3 Series. The "3 Across America" tour will culminate on May 6th, with an 18 hour marathon broadcast which will be aired on a special SIRIUS BMW Channel.
The program will consist of an entertaining and continuous "travelogue" of the entire coast-to-coast tour, including local attractions and adventures experienced on the drive, unique and eccentric stories from the road, live interviews, and vignettes. The journey will be topped off by a live concert starring top name performers.
A caravan of classic BMW 3 Series cars, new 330i Sedans, and the 3 Series' spiritual predecessor, the 2002ti -- representing the breadth and heritage of the 3 Series -- will depart from New York and travel across the country, ending up in Los Angeles on May 6th, which is also the official U.S. "on-sale" date for the new 3 Series. This cross-country caravan will give people across America a sneak peek at the new 3 Series before the car arrives in dealerships.
Snippets from the road will be compiled into minute-long updates to air across SIRIUS talk and entertainment channels throughout the "3 Across America" tour. Attendees of the various events across the country will have the chance to share their favorite driving stories, songs and experiences for these broadcasts. Listeners will also be treated to the sounds of local flavor from each city, which will be peppered throughout the broadcasts.
Very, very, very cool.
A helpful reader pointed me to the Radio Intelligencer where they have pics of the upcoming Eton / Porsche Design P`7131 Tabletop, the P`7132 Portable, and the E1XM satellite radio units taken at CES 2005.
Here's a great shot of the P'7131 and another shot of the P'7131. Also here's a beautiful photo of the E1XM AM/FM/SW/XM unit (with more here and here) and finally a shot of both the P'7131 and P'7132 together.
Very cool. Love the unique design.
There's still very little information available about the two Porsche Design XM Connect-and-Play equipped receivers; but from the look of those pics I pray that the XM Connect and Play antenna shown is for the "Home" kit (I believe it is), and that the portable/vehicle antennas will be slightly smaller.
We do know of a dedicated section of Eton/Grundig Radio's site for the P'7131 and P'7132 that has the usual marketing copy and a "COMING SOON" display. Once the units have hit stores, I'm sure we'll see that site in all it's glory.
As for a release date for any of these units, all we have to work with is from XM's Q404 Results:
"XM has developed alliances with a number of major consumer electronics manufacturers to launch XM Ready products with the "Connect-and-Play" technology in 2005 and 2006. The first "Connect-and-Play" product from Eton will be available in 60 days."
That was released on February 10th, which would put the 60 days at April 11th, and from what I can gather than that's just for the E1XM unit.
Ahh well, either way, I know I can't afford any of them. But it's nice to look.
SIRIUS Satellite Radio will soon provide a full suite of marine weather content for a new service expected to begin late this year. This special marine weather service that will include a variety of graphical and text information, including water surface temperatures, lightning strikes, coast-to-coast U.S. and Canadian weather radar, storm tracking, winds and wave heights.
This new marine data service is provided by the WSI Corporation, a leading provider of weather-driven solutions. The new service will be the first premium SIRIUS data service.
How much? Don't know yet, pricing will be announced later this year.
Liz Berger, former VP of Publicity at Miramax Films, has been appointed to Senior Director of Communications at SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Berger is responsible for handling entertainment publicity for the company's music, entertainment and talk programming and reports to Patrick Reilly, SIRIUS Senior Vice President of Communications.
During her six years at Miramax, she served as Vice President of Publicity at Miramax Films, where she was responsible for planning and implementing national publicity campaigns for their feature films.
Prior to Miramax Films, Berger worked at MPRM Public Relations where she worked on many independent films, represented films at film festivals and served as a unit publicist.
We've been anxious to find out exactly when the upcoming Pioneer AirWare XM2go portable satellite radio receiver will be available in-stores. And we just got that juicey info we've been yearning to hear...
*drum roll please*
The AirWare will be available in.... May! The Pioneer AirWare is available for sale NOW
That's all we know so far. When I get a specific date, trust me, you'll all find out as well.
A recent article in Forbes, Sirius Aims Low, has some harsh words about Sirius' receiver technology. While they tried not to be overly critical, the writer's opinion of the XACT Stream Jockey weren't exactly lovingly written.
One bit I found interesting:
Were it not for the MyFi, I'd be much more positive about this receiver. It's about the same size, and moves easily between home and car. It has a built-in FM transmitter, so you can push the sounds of Sirius programming to any FM radio nearby. This eliminates the need for at least some of the cords. Now all it needs is a battery and a hard drive or flash memory chips crammed into its body to give it the ability to record programming on the fly or on a schedule.
Sounds like the upcoming XACT ReGo. :)
(Thanks Mike!)
Jon Zellner, former Vice President of Adult Top 40/Hot AC Programming at Infinity Broadcasting, will be joining XM to serve in the newly-created position of Senior Vice President of Music Programming.
Zellner oversaw Adult Top 40/Hot AC stations in 17 cities, including San Francisco, Dallas, San Jose, Orlando, and Denver. Previously, he served at Infinity as Vice President of Top 40 Programming, overseeing stations in 11 cities.
He was Vice President of Programming for a four-station cluster of Infinity stations in Kansas City for eight years, as well as operations manager and program director for two Infinity stations in Boston for one year.
During his 18-year radio industry career, Zellner has served as a senior programming executive, operations manager, music director, and on-air talent at stations across the U.S. He was named one of the "best program directors in America" by Radio Ink magazine for four consecutive years.
Sirius Satellite Radio will provide uninterrupted and non-preempted coverage of every March Madness match-up from the opening tip of the opening round game on March 15 through the final buzzer of the championship game on April 4.
This marks Sirius as the first radio broadcaster to provide national coverage of March Madness in its entirety. Sirius is the exclusive satellite radio provider of every game of the 2005 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship as part of a multiyear radio agreement.
Want to see the whole schedule? Click this entry to see the entire lineup.
I read this article on MSNBC yesterday, and I gotta say that it's the biggest crock of shit I've read in a looong time. In the article (if you can even call it that), MSNBC columnist Gary Krakow babbles on about how he disagrees with the latest issue of Wired: The End of Radio As We Know It. He then defends his bold disagreement with the opinion that satellite radio has such poor sound quality that it's not even worth switching to. Here's the paragraph that initially struck me as bizaar:
Satellite radio sound is, at best, barely passable. That?s because your satellite service provider sends only one digital signal to your receiver. The receiver then splits that signal into hundreds of audio streams: some, for voice, very narrow; others, for music, a little wider. I?ve been told these streams run from a few KB for voice to something like 30 to 50KB for music.
Dear Mr. Krakow, satellite radio isn't streaming MP3 (gasp!). So whatever the compression rate, it doesn't matter because it's different technology buddy.
But he continues:
A typical music satellite radio station is thus compressed and expanded at a much lower rate than many MP3s. A reader will write me to defend the sound of a 128KB music file (it?s not near-CD quality despite what anyone tells you) but I can?t believe anyone can defend the sound quality of a 36KB satellite radio music stream.
Somehow these bold and assuming statements amaze me. I'm sure it's hard to imagine that companies that have hoards of geeks coordinating the signals from different sources nationwide up to geosynchronous or geostationary satellites, supported by hundreds of repeater towers broadcasting continuously to millions of units, could even possibly think of using something other than MP3. Oh my, could it be that companies who have spent millions of dollars to get these systems to work could some how be using broadcast and compression technology that is proprietary?
But then he writes:
These days, a low-end satellite receiver will set you back $100. For the same price you can get a Tivoli table radio which sounds 1,000 percent better than any music stream from either of the two satellite companies.
At first wonder if he's actually never heard satellite radio before. But when he brought up Tivoli, something clicked. Tivoli, Krakow, Tivoli, Krakow - why is this so familiar? Ah! I remembered now... I've actually pointed to one of Gary Krakow's articles recently, in which he lovingly writes about the MyFi, Polk XRt12, and the Tivoli tabletop AM/FM/SIRIUS receiver:
"I?ve tested MyFi in Las Vegas and New York -- and had absolutely no problem receiving a good-sounding signal via XM?s terrestrial antennas.""As for sound -- the Polk [XRt12] is the best sounding component tuner that I?ve ever heard in my system."
"As good as their [Tivoli] other table radios sound -- the Satellite just takes it one step further."
And that wasn't written too long ago (less than a month in fact). So I don't get it. Why the flip-flop? Did signal in NYC suddenly go sour or... is it just too fun to be the guy to contradict Wired?
You decide.
[/END RANT]
Former KFRX-FM/Lincoln, Nebraska Program Director Ryan Sampson is joining SIRIUS as a Program Coordinator/Assistant and on-air host on SIRIUS HITS Channel 1.
Sampson also held programming positions at WWMX/Baltimore, as Assistant Program Director/Music Director, and was an air talent at WWHT/Syracuse, NY.
XM Satellite Radio's Opie & Anthony will air from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM ET, one hour later than the program?s current timeslot, beginning Monday, March 14.
Opie was also quoted saying "It's true that we're looking for some other shows for our channel on XM. Who knows one of these shows may end up surprising us!"
This, combined with High Voltage moving off the premium package and Ron Bennington closing out a recent show with "Your Mom's Box", is all adding fuel to the fire about the Ron and Fez moving to XM rumors. We'll see what comes about from all this.
We just got word on the status of the upcoming
