Any aquisitions that Sirius makes has to be some future date when they are profitable. If, and that's a big if, Sirius generates the cash flow that they claim it will then it would be irresponsible not to expand the product line. Internet entertainment delivery is the future of radio. Sirius will have to move into that field. Depending on how happy you are with the merged channels, which I largely am, you will agree they are capable of running the current type of business. The fact is they lacked any kind of innovativeness when it comes to internet products
I am very impressed with the Slacker service. The concept behind their wi-fi radio device show the kind of innovativeness that Sirius has lacked. I was surprised to find out that Dennis Mudd founded Slacker. Dennis Mudd had previously founded Musicmatch, a service I enjoyed even before satellite radio. Could Sirius create a service like Slacker. Maybe. One thing I hope is Yahoo doesn't get a hold of Sirius or Slacker and destroy it like they did with Musicmatch.
Last edited by James; 12-12-2008 at 12:06 AM.
Correct me if im wrong but I give it a shot...
XM and Sirius are each allocated 12.5 megahertz of radio spectrum by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
On XM's 12.5 mhz they are broadcasting the XM lineup.
On Sirius's 12.5 mhz they are broadcasting the sirius lineup.
Both now share music stations, however, Sirius is using their 12.5 to broadcast the same that XM is broadcasting, therefore duplicating broadcasts which are hogging up twice the bandwidth than if music was only on the xm bandwidth and news sports talk were on the sirius bandwidth.
However, if that last statement were to happen then every Sirius radio owner now has to buy an xm reciever to get music and xm owners have to buy a sirius radio to get news sports talk.
To add to that scenario, now XM has say 6.5 open mhz and sirius has 6.5 open mhz. So what to do? Broadcast news sports talk on xm's leftover 6.5 mhz and music on sirius's leftover 6.5 mhz...but thats a waste of money because now 2 companies are broadcasting the same content.
That is where they are now...they merged content but instead of gaining 12.5 mhz they are now using 25mhz to broadcast the same content, twice.
Once the interop radio comes out, then sirius may have some specialized content that an xm subscriber can unlock and vice versa.
But until all of the non interop radios are dead, they can't merge the bandwidth.
Think of it like xm's chipset picks up 1mhz to 12.5 mhz frequencies and sirius's chipset picks up 12.5mhz to 25mhz. Its like having an FM radio without the AM tuner.
So, they merged content to save from paying 2 DJ's to play the same music but they did not gain bandwidth. But the subscriber wins because the only fundamental difference between the two services is the respective "best of" and now instead of paying $12.95 for the difference the subscriber only has to pay $4 for the different content, which is like adding HBO to your cable bill.
I suspect that once the company turns a profit they will offer free radios and replace all of one brands receivers. Then that brand of receiver will only get 130 channels, but the new interop radios will get 260, with no duplicates.
DONE! See you in 6-8 years when this happens, IMO of course.
I don't know the lifespan on the radios but I bet they don't last 5 years? At which point the only option will be to buy an interop or complain until they send you a free refurbished interop. Then they will drop the content on one set of satellites, only broadcast it on the other and pick up a whole group of satellites worth of 12.5mhz new content.
Last edited by imromo24; 12-11-2008 at 11:52 PM.
I think it is acceptable at this point to charge for "Best Of Both" services. This, IMO, will be a short term thing, as people will no longer have to do this once the interopperable radios come out. Of course, they will still be paying for it, but in a different way because they will be buying the tier. (It will also entice people to upgrade to newer interop capable radios).
There should not be a premium feed, because a song is a song and the streaming rate should be adequate for perfect sound, period.
At this point, the company needs to get profitable. At that time, we can reevaluate the fees. Sirius has done a horrible job in marketing the services. This definately needs to improve. Unfortunately, they have been doing some things to piss some people off (BTLS, the channel lineup, etc). Those people will not be recommending it to their friends... thus we need to make up for that by advertising. Not such a great move when the company is already suffering.