Circuit City conducted a survey recently for the upcoming holiday season to see what product categories consumers are interested in. According to the results, over 40% of U.S. families plan to go out less and entertain more at home citing recent increases in fuel and energy costs. That’s good news for Satellite Radio.

The survey indicates that the appeal of digital music is spreading beyond young enthusiasts. 74% said the ability to carry and manage a large music collection in a portable device attracts them to MP3 players; other respondents cited the availability of easy and legal downloads.

The popularity of Satellite Radio is also growing more and more as well as consumers are exposed to the new medium. Circuit City is running promotions as a result, including a SIRIUS Sportster Replay, for $99.99 (after a $50 mail-in rebate offer good through November and December)

Whoa. Talk about a promotion. To celebrate the first game of the 2005 World Series, and of course to leverage their relationship with the MLB, XM Satellite Radio will offer a free satellite radio to every fan who enters U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago for Game One this Saturday. That’s 40,615 ticketholders! Each RoadyXT coupon distributed at the ballpark will have a unique code number. The coupon holder can use the code number to order the RoadyXT online and will pay a $12.95 monthly subscription to listen to the XM service (the first three months of service must be prepayed when ordering).

The giveaway will be the largest in the 102-year history of the World Series.

When fans arrive at the ballpark for the first game of the Fall Classic, every ticket holder will receive a coupon good for the brand-new Delphi XM RoadyXT satellite radio (MSRP: $79.99), plus a World Series commemorative pin attached to the coupon.

And if the 2005 World Series goes to a fifth game, XM will extend this offer to fans at the Minute Maid Park in Houston for Game Five.

UPDATE: USA Today has a piece on this as well. Thanks Uncle Bob!

MP3 Newswire has a great article on the ongoing negotiations between XM and SIRIUS with the RIAA. If you remember, the RIAA recently has objected to the upcoming MP3/Satellite Radio devices like the Sirius S50, Samsung neXus and now the Dell DJ Satellite. Not only that, but the RIAA has also mentioned raising the licensing fees (as much as a $1 billion?) for both XM and SIRIUS when their contract expires next year.

What negotiation chips do SIRIUS and XM have in this case? The article covers some interesting thoughts: Satellite Radio can simply play the radio-card, claiming they need to be treated like AM/FM (who get music for notoriously cheap rates). Still, both XM and SIRIUS can’t really survive without the RIAA - 80s channels are nothing without 80s music - so the RIAA has the upper-hand in this case.

Should negotiations go into arbitration, and they probably will, the result will have an effect on both listeners, and Wall Street. Advice to the RIAA: tread lightly - you need us just as much as we need you.

The NDA from the Secret Room at the XMas In August event has been lifted as of October 15th. I can finally talk about this thing! Legg Mason took almost no time to leak out info on it after the event, and PC Magazine followed up in early September with their own bits of leakage - but for those of us who were contractually bound, we couldn’t say a word about it.

Unfortunately, the NDA also had to be lifted on a weekend, so no pictures of this fabled device are available yet either, nor do I have a product sheet that specifically gives the final production details on this new device. I saw it, I touched it, and I talked to the PR peeps all about it - but damnit, I couldn’t take any photos of it. So, please be aware that all the information you’re about to read is based on my memory, and is based on the pre-production version I saw over 2 months ago. Things may have changed since then.

Tentatively, we’ll call this device the Dell DJ Satellite. I have a feeling it may take on another name but that’s just speculation. Like XM’s upcoming Samsung neXus device, the “Dell DJ Satellite” is a combo MP3/XM Satellite Radio player with live functionality when the unit is docked.

But unlike the neXus - which will come in 25-hour (512Mb) and 50-hour (1Gb) flavors - the Dell/XM unit will have 6Gb of capacity which is a whole lot more hours of listening (though I’ve never been a big fan of describing “hours” of listening — too many factors involved). When docked, the unit will receive XM Satellite Radio and will allow for saving of XM content to the unit for later listening. You can of course mix in your own MP3s with the satrad content. Like the neXus, the Dell unit uses XM’s Connect-and-Play technology. There were several other plugs on the back of the cradle, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what they were for — obviously much more than just plugging into your computer. Take a guess on that.

The unit I saw was small - very small. A nice sleek device that was black in color, and from what I was told, features a titanium backing - this thing was hot. There was the possibility that the DJ will come in different colors, though at the time I couldn’t get any specific answers. Pink was a definite possibility. I really can’t describe how sleek this thing looked, and I really wish I had pics for all to see, but honestly it’s gorgeous. From what I remember (validated by the various leaked reports) the display is a color display — though I can’t recall how many colors exactly.

The XM/Dell unit will also be equipped with an FM tuner, not that anyone should be using that feature, but it’s nice to have it available just in case you want to listen to some commercials for a while. The PC Mag article mentions two separate Dell units, but I can’t confirm that - all I saw was one unit, and 30Gb of capacity was never mentioned. But again, things could have changed (and I’m sure we’ll find out for sure soon enough). Like the neXus as well, the Dell DJ Satellite unit will have the XM + Napster functionality allowing for tagging of songs for future purchase.

Price? Don’t know the exact price of course, but I was told it would be comparable to current models. Dell prices it’s Pocket DJ at $169 and it’s big-boy DJ ranging from $199 to $239 — so that can provide an educated guess for the price positioning. Stay tuned as we’ll all find out all the full details as soon as the product sheet is released.

Anyway, so that’s that. You can rest easy now, because yes, it’s all true.

Sirius Satellite Radio has been recognized for call center operation customer satisfaction excellence under the J.D. Power and Associates Certified Call Center Program. For certification status, a call center must perform within the top 20 percent of customer service, based on J.D. Power and Associates’ cross-industry customer satisfaction research.

Sirius’ call centers handled more than three million telephone, e-mail and fax interactions in 2004, and expects to handle approximately six million in 2005. The call center operation successfully passed a detailed audit of its recruiting, training, employee incentives, management roles and responsibilities, and quality assurance capabilities.

J.D. Power and Associates also conducted a random survey of Sirius customers who recently contacted its call centers. The evaluation criteria used during the survey include: courtesy of the customer service representative; knowledge of the rep; the rep’s concern for the customer questions or problem; usefulness of the information provided; convenience of customer service operating hours; ease of getting through to a human; and timely resolution of the customer’s problem, question or request.

Certification is valid for one year.

[via Sirius Backstage]

Slashdot: The RIAA could be seeking $1 Billion from XM Satellite Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio for the new music licensing contracts covering 2007 - 2012. The current $80 Million contract expires in 2006.

I personally don’t think anything will come about from the RIAA’s “possible” objections against the S50 and the neXus, but with the RIAA - you never know.

I know I touched upon this a couple days ago, but reading this article really pisses me off. It has a whole lot more quotes from our hero Mark Mays (Clear Channel CEO), such as bits like this:

“Satellite radio — which has no obligation to the public interest — is a national, not a local, programming service,” Mays said.

%@&#$@%!!

MediaWeek: Clear Channel president and CEO Mark Mays said at a luncheon sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation that terrestrial radio is “struggling” against emerging media such as podcasting, Internet radio, and - “perhaps the most alarming” - XM and SIRIUS Satellite Radio.

Why? Because Satellite has over 120 channels, each available in every market, while terrestrial “only” is regulated to 8 stations per market. “If XM is allowed to have 150 channels in each market, it is a competitive disadvantage for us to have only eight,” Mays said.

But… while Mays whines and complains about losing marketshare (to competition? gasp!) the hidden agenda is pretty transparent. Instead of 8 stations, he suggested the ability to buy up to 12 stations in the largest markets. Wow. Such an honest and nobel suggestion…

Agere Systems, the chip supplier to Sirius, has recently filed for a patent to create a repeater device that broadcasts over a wireless local area network (WLAN). The idea would be to receive the satellite signal, and reformat the bitstream received to deliver over WiFi to any number of receivers.

The patent reads like Agere is working on a simple way to allow for dependable interior listening of satellite radio. The big deal about this is that Agere will not be simply repeating one channel, the repeater would include "a plurality of channels" and then leave it up to the individual receiver to choose the channel.

This could be great for Sirius if WiFi receivers were built into their new devices. Businesses definitely would find this very useful. You could theoretically listen to satellite on your laptop, or setup "Sirius HotSpots" - gyms could rebroadcast Sirius to receivers built into treadmills.

Thanks Junior!