Sirius' Live Earth satellite stream, came from XM?
Monday, July 9, 2007 at 10:29 AM
Tags: 2, XM
There's an interesting article in Radio & Records today about the Live Earth coverage on XM Satellite Radio, but what struck me the most was that XM fed its stream direct to Sirius.
"XM had more than 60 people stationed at Wembly Stadium in London and Giant’s Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., collecting sound and producing interviews for seven XM music channels carrying various concerts from Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg, London, Johannesburg, Rio De Janeiro and New York. XM took sound from the Intelsat pool and fed it to competitors Sirius Satellite Radio and Premiere Radio Networks along with World Space, Italy’s RDS and Radio Express."
What's interesting about this is that it clearly demonstrates that XM and Sirius can share streams with ease, and in real time. I'm not sure if this was the first time they've done this, but it's interesting nonetheless. If you're curious how Sirius/XM would be able to share content across platforms in a post-merger world... well, this is it.
(Read the R&R article for more on the Live Earth coverage. There's a funny bit in there involving Spinal Tap.)
Oh by the way, Premiere is radio syndication company in the U.S. with over 5,000 stations worldwide, and on the Internet, picking up their stream. They're owned by Clear Channel of course, which is the largest radio corporation in the U.S. to boot.
But yet, "they" say terrestrial radio doesn't compete with satellite radio on the nationwide basis.
[Radio & Records]
Thanks Tim!
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Comments
It may have been part of the Network Live deal worked out after Live 8 2 years ago.
And I don't believe that Sirius's units received the stream from XM's download stream to its units. Probably Sirius's satellites picked it off of a downlink that was available to other broadcasters and retransmitted over Sirius's birds, much the same way that other satellite feeds are done.
http://xmradio.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=790
Posted by: Robert | July 9, 2007 10:51 AM
So could XM be why the Sirius stream had all those 'hiccups' in it that sounded like frame loss?
Posted by: dlnester | July 9, 2007 11:20 AM
I think 'stream' is a loose usage, I'm sure they don't literally mean the Internet feed. More than likely they're referring to the audio being fed on fiber interconnects. And I heard hiccups on XM too, so it may have been upstream of them too. Also, was it just me or was the mixing at the UK stage horrific. Sounded even worse when I caught some Black Eyed Peas on Bravo.
Posted by: TVGenius ? | July 9, 2007 11:44 AM
i just finished reading the intrview with M. Hartlieb over at sirius buzz. i think it was "anonymous coward" who had some questions about mr. h's background. after having read the article i have to say its still a little unclear (to me) who this guy is.
i really dont know if thats an important question though? maybe others could expand on this topic? the one thing that stood out to me was the confirmation from mr h's sources that our existing recievers are infact capable of recieving both signals.
if this is true it seems that there is a new dimension to the merger. the rumors of other suitors for xm? how would a truly interoperable reciever impact those discusions? at this point i am very confused by this possible new wrinkle and am hoping that people smarter than me can chime in here with some thoughts?
Posted by: rkb ? | July 9, 2007 12:31 PM
I doubt it was through Network Live, as that whole deal involved AOL also, and it was MSN that had the live video streaming of Live Earth. AOL had the exclusive for Live 8.
I suppose a good question is... was XM sharing the direct Intelsat feed to Sirius, or were they sharing their channels? If you heard the XM personalities in London and NYC on Sirius - XM had people at those two locations - then XM was sharing their channels. If you only heard the stage performances, then XM was only sharing the Intelsat feeds, and there's no indication here of easily sharing channels between the two services.
Of course, a better question might be if it was available via Intelsat, why wouldn't Premiere (Clear Channel) and Sirius get it directly from those feeds? Why go through an intermediate source? Unless XM had some special deal to be a distributor for the feeds to radio interests...
Posted by: MikeV ? | July 9, 2007 12:54 PM
MikeV - Network Live had the exclusive production rights to the Live 8 shows. It may have been the same for Live Earth where XM/Network Live provided the pool audio coverage for anyone to take, much like the network pool coverage of presidental addresses, etc. The "branding" by each distributor (Sirius, Premiere, etc.) is their DJs talking things up.
Posted by: Robert | July 9, 2007 1:08 PM
"Network Live" became "Control Room" which had the broadcast rights to Live Earth. So, it's no surprise that XM played a role in providing coverage of the concerts to other broadcasters.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117968072.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
Posted by: Robert | July 9, 2007 2:21 PM
Not surpising.
XM bought Effanel a couple of years back (I only know this because Lee Abrams mentioned it on his blog, almost in passing). Effanel is probably the dominant concert recording outfit; their trucks for instance recorded the S&M performances from Metallica. Most times that you hear a concert on the radio, Effanel/XM worked on it.
Posted by: leviramsey ? | July 9, 2007 5:41 PM