December 29, 2004

Which Stock is Better? Vote for XM, Sirius or Both.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004 at 8:47 AM

SquawkBack Poll: XM, Sirius or both?
'Squawk Box' is running a Vote for which stock buy you think is better - XM, Sirius, Both or Neither.

Which do you think is a better buy? Tell "Squawk Box" what you think and cast your vote now.

View the results here.

December 20, 2004

Alpine Ai-NET Stereos the First to offer Sirius or XM Satellite Radio

Monday, December 20, 2004 at 2:01 PM

Alpine Ai-NET Stereos the First to offer Sirius or XM Satellite Radio
Alpine just announced that select 2004 Ai-NET series head units are now SAT Radio Ready and will support either Sirius or XM Satellite Radio. All you need is the SiriusConnect and/or the XMDirect adapters, and you're good to go.

Gizmodo has also confirmed that you will be able to have both XM and Sirius Satellite Radio at the same time with this new unit.

Both Sirius and XM on one unit? Very nice.

New Service Puts Audio Channels on Cell Phones

Monday, December 20, 2004 at 8:32 AM

Spring and Music Choice Today put audio on cellphones
Sprint plans to launch a new service for streaming music over the airwaves to cell phones, powered by Music Choice - a company that provides digital music to cable and satellite TV subscribers.

The service, called Music Choice Today, bows Monday and offers Sprint subscribers streaming access to Music Choice audio channels via their cell phones.

For $5.99 per month, users can listen to a range of genres and formats, including R&B/hip-hop, pop, country and rock. The service also features music news and daily video snippets of artist interviews and performances originally produced by Music Choice.

This could put the heat on XM to provide satellite radio on cell phones, but personally I'm thinking that Sprint could concentrate on improving their network and service rather than pushing new bells and whistles.

December 17, 2004

Orbitcast re-re-design

Friday, December 17, 2004 at 8:38 AM

Orbitcast re-design(Hey RSS folks, check out the new look) I've finally settled on the design that I'm happy with. Some might remember how salty I was with the previous look - the happy clouds just didn't reflect the feeling I'm shooting for. This new LCD-look header is much more to my style and gives that sorta 'techie' look that I'm digging.

Whatever, the design means shit, it's all about the content anyway. But if you have any feelings about the look, for or against, feel free to comment away.


Speaking of comments, please note that in the spirit of Satellite Radio, I will never edit or delete a comment unless it's purely spam. So go ahead and get nasty with any language you want - no censorship here.

December 16, 2004

iPod Satellite considered Technically Unfeasible

Thursday, December 16, 2004 at 12:31 PM

iPod / Sirius Satellite Radio Device
We pretty much knew this all along but to April Horace, a Janco Partners analyst, deemed the rumored iPod with Sirius satellite radio as technologically unfeasible right now.

"I don't believe Sirius' chip set is at the point where it can go into an iPod. It's the size of a credit card, and an iPod would need a chip set the size of a thumb nail," she said.

That's not to say the industry isn't thinking about it. After launching its wearable MyFi device in October, XM chief executive Hugh Panero said he believed one day a portable satellite player would be combined with a device like an iPod. Assuming the XM chipset would fit in an iPod, then Panero's concept for cell phones having satellite radio would be possible as well.

Sirius chairman Joseph Clayton has said over the past several months that when Sirius has its third generation chip set ready, expected by as early as late summer, it will enable Sirius to make a device similar to the MyFi - the new Brix palm-sized receiver may be our glance into this next gen of Sirius devices.

December 15, 2004

FCC: Satcasters Not Subject to Indecency Rules

Wednesday, December 15, 2004 at 4:13 PM

Satcasters Not Subject to FCC Indecency Rules
Wow, this is good news. We reported last month that Saul Levine filed a Petition for Rulemaking to amend Part 25 of the FCC?s pending satellite radio rules to include an indecency provision.

Well guess what?

The FCC has denied Saul Levine?s petition to make satellite-radio broadcasters subject to the same indecency regulations that govern terrestrial broadcasters. The Commission said the key difference is both XM and Sirius are providing subscription services and that there is no ?indiscriminate access? to their services by children.

The FCC said ?subscription-based services do not call into play the issue of indecency,? and that the Commission ?does not impose regulations regarding indecency on services lacking the indiscriminate access to children that characterizes broadcasting.?

At least Mr. Powell got that one right.

December 9, 2004

Orbitcast (re)design

Thursday, December 9, 2004 at 11:59 AM

Those of you reading via RSS probably never noticed, but yesterday I did a little update to the look of the Orbitcast site to finally get rid of the boring default MT design and make it into something more gooder.

Unfortunately - after a whole 12 hours of looking at those friggin clouds, I've come to the conclusion that this new design stinks. The awful heavenly look is just plain stupid, and I'm disgusted by it.

So I'm gonna change it - if you find the site is messed up, just reload in 5 minutes cause you probably caught me in the midst of a site change.

Feel free to comment to this post with how much you hate this new design. I won't cry.

December 7, 2004

Toyota goes Satellite Radio in a big way

Tuesday, December 7, 2004 at 9:26 AM

Toyota goes Satellite Radio
Today XM Satellite Radio announced a long term data services agreement with Toyota. The auto-maker has selected XM as its supplier for satellite delivered data services for it's Toyota, Lexus and Scion line of vehicles. In addition, Toyota will offer XM radios as a factory-installed option in Toyota and Lexus vehicles. The first vehicles factory-installed with XM radios will be available in 2006. Toyota will expand the factory-installed availability of XM's satellite radio and data services to additional Toyota and Lexus models in the future. Plus, Toyota will expand the number of models offering XM as a dealer-installed option in 2005.

XM is currently available as a dealer-installed option on the following 10 models: Toyota Camry, Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota Solara Convertible, Toyota Solara Coupe, Lexus ES 330, Lexus LS 430, Lexus LX 470, Scion tC, Scion xA and Scion xB. In 2005, Toyota will expand the number of models offering XM as a dealer-installed option, including the Toyota Avalon and Lexus GS 330.


Right on the tail of this news, Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Toyota will offer Sirius, as both a post-production and dealer-installed option, in nine models beginning in February 2005. The Toyota models include: Camry, Solara, Land Cruiser, Lexus LS 430, Lexus ES 330, Lexus LX 470, Scion xA, Scion xB and Scion tC.

December 3, 2004

XM and SIRIUS head to the Nasdaq-100

Friday, December 3, 2004 at 4:08 PM

Bloomberg reports that XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio will join the Nasdaq-100 when the index is rebalanced on Dec. 17, vaulting into the ranks of the 100 largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq Stock Market this year

Great. As if those two stocks didn't need a further boost from Wall Street. Rally anyone?

Satellite Radio: December 2004 (9)