Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio (SDARS) service operating in the United States and Canada, owned by Sirius XM Radio. Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams (channels) of music and 65 streams of sports, news and entertainment to listeners. Music streams on Sirius carry a wide variety of genres, broadcasting 24 hours daily, commercial-free, and uncensored. A subset of Sirius music channels is included as part of the Dish Network satellite television service. Sirius channels are identified by Arbitron with the label "SR" (e.g. "SR120", "SR9", "SR17").
Its business model is to provide pay-for-service radio, analogous to the business model for premium cable television, in which music channels are free of commercials. Talk channels such as Howard Stern's "Howard 100" and "Howard 101" do have regular commercials, approximately 6 minutes per hour. Subscriptions are prepaid and range in price from US$12.95 monthly (US$8.99 for each additional receiver) to US$499.99 for lifetime (of the receiver equipment) subscription. There is a US$15 activation fee for every radio activated. Sirius announced it had achieved its first positive cash flow quarter for the period ending December 2006.
Sirius was founded as Satellite CD Radio, Inc. , which it was known by until the change to its present designation on November 18, 1999. The name is derived from Sirius, sometimes referred to as the Dog Star , the brightest star in the night-time sky, and was developed by the company's founder David Margolese, and its Marketing Chief Ira Bahr The dog in the Sirius logo is unofficially named "Mongo", a name garnered from the debut of Sirius Satellite Radio’s sponsorship on Casey Atwood’s and later Jimmy Spencer’s NASCAR entry, when the announcing cast voted on names. "Mongo" later became NASCAR driver Spencer’s nickname with the NASCAR Broadcasters (mainly Darrell Waltrip) in the following races.
Sirius launched its radio service in four states on February 14, 2002, expanding service to the rest of the continental U.S. by July of that year.
On October 16, 2006 Sirius announced that it would be launching Sirius Internet Radio with 78 of its 135 channels being available worldwide on the internet to any of its subscribers with a valid user name and password.
On July 29, 2008, Sirius formally completed its merger with former competitor XM Satellite Radio. The combined company began operating under the name Sirius XM Radio. On November 12, 2008, Sirius and XM began broadcasting with their new, combined channel lineups.
As of December 31, 2008 Sirius XM had a total of 19,003,856 subscribers.
XM Satellite merger
For more details on this topic, see Sirius XM Radio.On February 19, 2007, Sirius announced a merger deal with XM Satellite Radio. Upon government approval, the merger combined the two radio services and created a single satellite radio network in the United States, named SIRIUS XM Radio.
On March 24, 2008, the United States Justice Department approved the merger of Sirius and XM. The approval process for this merger was the longest in United States history. Approval from the Federal Communications Commission cleared on July 25, 2008.
One of the issues that the FCC has been called to resolve is the fact that, 10 years after initiating operations, both Sirius and XM have kept the United States' outlying states and territories in the dark. Rep. José E. Serrano, several members of the Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus, headed by Senate of Puerto Rico President Kenneth McClintock and a resolution of the Puerto Rico Senate have called upon the FCC to require the merged company to offer service to the outlying areas of the US within a given timeframe as a condition for the merger.
As a result of Serrano and McClintock's efforts, Sirius made a written commitment in the FCC docket to offer service in Puerto Rico within three months of the merger approval. The application with the FCC for 20 additional repeaters in Puerto Rico was filed on October 27, 2008. Sirius XM was granted temporary authority for these repeaters in September 2009.
On July 25, 2008, after 17 months, the merger was approved in a 3–2 vote by the FCC. The companies voluntarily agreed to stipulations that include setting aside 8% of their channels for public interest and minority programming, 3 year price cap, as well as a A-La-Carte pricing available within 3 months of deal closure.
Content
Channels
- List of Sirius Satellite Radio stations
According to a Spring 2007 Arbitron report, the five most listened to channels on Sirius based on their Average Quarterly Hour (AQH) Share are Howard 100, Howard 101, The Highway (60), Sirius Hits 1 and Octane (20).
Programming content
A major component of Sirius business strategy has been to execute far-reaching and exclusive deals with big-name entertainers and personalities to create and build broadcast streams, from the ground up. Sirius has reached extensive deals with domestic diva Martha Stewart, E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt, aka Little Steven , Jimmy Buffett, and Eminem to executive-produce streams or entire channels on Sirius. Van Zandt was the first major musician recruited by Sirius or XM to create branded music channels and he has created two distinct stations for Sirius, the Underground Garage dedicated to garage rock, and Outlaw Country with its focus on alternative country music.
By far the largest of these deals was announced on October 6, 2004 when Sirius announced that it signed a five-year, US$100 million per year agreement with Howard Stern to move his radio show, The Howard Stern Show, to Sirius starting on January 9, 2006. The deal, which gave Sirius exclusive rights to Stern’s radio show, also gave Stern the right to build three full-time programming channels. Currently, Stern has two operating channels on Sirius, but still retains the right to a third. Stern said his move was forced by the stringent regulations of the FCC whose enforcement was intensified following the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show. Beginning with the announcement of his imminent departure, Stern complained Infinity Broadcasting was making his departure more acrimonious than was necessary.
Sirius presents an extensive array of programming on multiple channels that cover a wide variety of genres. The overall categories include: Music, News/Talk, Sports, Entertainment. Within each category there are multiple channels that present a wide variety of sub-genres. For example the Music category sub-divides into streams for Rock, Pop, Country, Hip-Hop/R&B, Jazz/Blues – and within each stream there are channels for various sub-sections. An example of the variety of music offerings available would be the 22 channels playing different sub-genres of rock. Sirius channels are, on average, more FM styled with frequent DJ chat and narrower playlists than competing XM channels.
The vast majority of its programming is self-produced exclusively for Sirius. However, there are some shows—especially in the Talk genre—that are syndicated programs originally created for terrestrial radio that now air on traditional radio and Sirius simultaneously, for example, the Eternal Word Television Network which broadcasts on channel 160.
Among the hosts who present shows heard on Sirius, there are many high-profile personalities:
- Sports figures such as seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton, sports show host Scott Ferrall, fantasy football experts John Hansen and Adam Caplan, notable skateboarder Tony Hawk, skateboarder/MTV personality Bam Margera, and skateboarder Jason Ellis.
- Musicians such as Joan Jett, Keith Morris of Black Flag, the B-52's lead singer Fred Schneider, Marky Ramone of The Ramones, and New York Dolls singer David Johansen.
- Veteran deejays including: New York City DJ "Cousin Brucie", freeform radio pioneer Vin Scelsa, Richard Blade, Joe Causi and Kid Leo.
- Original MTV veejays Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn.
- Hip Hop superstars including Eminem and 50 Cent along with legends like Grandmaster Flash, Kool DJ Red Alert, Kurtis Blow and DJ Premier.
- Popular dance music artists and DJs like Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, Liquid Todd, Pete Tong, The Riddler and DJ Icey.
- Political commentators including Bill Press, Michael Reagan, Mike Church, Bill Bennett, Mike Malloy, Lynn Samuels and G. Gordon Liddy.
- Comedians and satirists include Harry Shearer, Duane Cahill, Mojo Nixon, and Jim Breuer.
- Entertainment such as Cosmo and Maxim Radio featuring Covino and Rich.
On November 18, 2004 the former COO and President of Viacom, Mel Karmazin, was named the CEO of Sirius. Stern worked under Karmazin at Infinity Radio and the two appeared to always have a great deal of mutual respect. It was Karmazin who fiercely protected Stern in the wake of the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show (produced by MTV and aired by CBS, both co-owned with Infinity-now CBS Radio-until CBS Corporation split off in 2006) and the FCC crackdown on shock jocks and obscenity, in general.
On October 25, 2005 Sirius announced that "E Street Radio", the exclusive channel of legendar
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