Sirius XM Fuels Speculation With “Satellite Radio 2.0”
The term “Satellite Radio 2.0” came out of nowhere today in Sirius XM’s conference call regarding their financial results for the second quarter of 2010. No one was expecting anything new in terms of hardware to be discussed in the call today and what Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin did was give everyone a glimmer of something even better on the horizon.
Sirius XM is very committed to continue to innovate. Satellite radio was a great example of that innovation and Satellite Radio 2.0 where we believe take it to a new level. While we have been reducing costs and making the organization more efficient. We continue to invest in R&D.
Our next generation of satellite radios are expected to offer significantly more choices for the consumer and contain functionality that does not exist today in our radios. There will not be any significant increase in our costs, to bring these radios to consumers and we expect to have the first Satellite Radio 2.0 products in retail stores by the holiday season in the fourth quarter of 2011.
So what exactly is Satellite Radio 2.0? That seems to be the burning question of many, and my email inbox lit up with people wanting to know more. Well, at this point all anyone, including myself, can do is speculate. Analyst Barton Crockett of Lazard Capital was the first person up in the Q&A session, and he did what everyone wanted by asking for more flavor on Satellite Radio 2.0. Karmazin’s response gave a couple of hints but was still cryptic.
“…it’s going to provide for us to have more capacity, which would mean more channels and more offering as well as more functionality as well. Beyond that, we’re currently in the process of talking to our OEM partners and retail partners about product, so I really don’t want to go into anymore detail prior to us discussing it with them.”
Effectively, Karmazin just started a small fire that will grow over each passing quarter until August of next year when they preview their new line-up for the Holiday shopping season. That is one year of solid anticipation, and four quarters of people wanting a bit more flavor. The technique is oft used by many companies to build some excitement and anticipation. Usually such hints come closer to the actual release, causing me to think that we will begin to see some 2.0 product prior to Christmas of 2011.
If I had to guess, I would say that Satellite Radio 2.0 will be based on new chip-sets capable of better handling data that is delivered from the satellites. It also sounds like they are working on or have already found a more efficient way to compress their signals to deliver additional content. Perhaps the company will be able to add additional information such as album art, or maybe the units will be more inclined to act as smart devices and will allow for some integration with the Internet Radio side of Sirius XM. There are many possibilities that satellite radio fans can ponder as the next 12 months pass. Certainly we will see more information in the coming quarters.
What features would you like to see on satellite radio that currently aren’t there? Your ideas could become reality with the new Satellite Radio 2.0
Position – Long Sirius XM Radio
I wonder how they will handle OEM installs in cars?
As for possibilities, how about built in SiriusTV capability?
Sirius radio with built in Wifi capabilities?
What would be wonderful Spencer – A Stiletto that picks up the the satellite, wifi AND CELLULAR signal for Sirius internet radio. And of course Howard on all 3.
I am probably dreaming.
It’s Called an iPhone with pocket tunes
While it is true you can get a SkyDock for the iPhone to get the satellite signal I would still prefer to have a wireless portable to get all 3 signals – satellite, wifi, and cellular on one unit.
I can see a CDMA / WiFi / Satellite Radio phone hybrid.
One touch purchase button of products besides music.
Digital type qvc (Malone)
Radio QVC
My wife would have a field day.
This news got me excited as a user and investor
We gotta wait a whole year for this…What a joke.
And I hope they have some good news to release along with the announcement of Howards departure this year…
Knowing Mel and the company they most likely will not.
I know I shouldn’t get excited but I can’t help it. We might finally be at the end of a long dark journey.If Mel pulls this off he’ll deserve a “S” on the chest! I keep repeating myself but if sat.tv can have video on demand why can’t sirius/xm have audio on demand. Sirius/Xm StreamBox channel,any song,anytime. You’d have all this great content, that obviously people like plus attract the crowd that wants to hear their song now.I’d pay extra a month for audio on demand.I also like Spencers idea about art work. You could also include lyrics and facts/latest news on the artist.
My guess is that this radio will free up bandwidth to handle video.. What a great idea if that’s the case! My bets on live video capability.
My wish list for 2.0, i was hoping it was coming out this X-mas?
1. Be able to buffer the signal, with the satellites repeating the signal forward and back for a certain span so the receiver won’t clip out/lose signal. Receiver is smart enough to avoid any loss while driving.
2. Be able to automatically go from/to any signal (satellite, wi-fi, cellular) seamlessly to avoid signal loss. With #1 and #2 i should never have a problem while driving.
3. All new receivers/hardware built similar to the Stilleto 2 where i can press a button, rip the song and create playlists. Record shows, sporting events etc like a TIVO (again what Stilletto2 has). Put this in the cars with built-in SIRIUS/XM as well. The interface in my Tahoe is abysmal.
4. Similar to someone else’s comment, on demand satellite download with purchase option would be cool.
5. Hardware that lasts longer than 2 years. My friends gave up on satellite because they kept having to buy a new Sportster.
6. If Satellite 2.0 is a huge improvement, please don’t mess it up (as they did with 1.0) by not advertising, having only a few know about the product. Take lessons from Apple.
Thanks again for doing what you do Spencer. I like that you’re participating with the playground guys too.
I can see at some point radios that do what the old radios did, plus all of them should record at least a few hours of music. What would be very cool would be to have all of the capabilities that Pandora/Slacker offer when connected to a cellular network. If it’s capable of doing off satellites, even better, but I’m not sure if that would work.
I’ve invested in companies like Pandora before. The concept is great, and people like it, but then another company with more cash, and more alliances/connections, come along and burry the company I invested in. There was talk of a Pandora radio for cars awhile back. Sirius/XM already has the contacts and agreements in place with the OEM’s. It will be easier for Sirius/XM to introduce new technologies and profit sources than it will be for any of the others out there. This is their game to lose. I’m glad to see they are continuing to innovate.
Wanted to get this out there as I haven’t seen it discussed. Has nothing to do with what is “on” Sirius, has to do with reducing “churn”, an important metric you will agree.
Sirius might benefit from offering “loyalty rewards” base on criteria such as length of subscription, number of subscriptions, number of shares owned for “x” amount of time (shareholders deserve loyalty rewards too). Whatever the company covets and would deem worthy of said “loyalty reward”
At first blush, rewards such as free subscriptions, upgrades to “best of” programming, maybe even free equipment would surely be an enticement not to terminate membership or sell shares. Reduced subscription fees for programming upgrades could also be considered as a lesser pot sweetener.
None of these “loyalty rewards would necessarily cost the company money.
After everything shakes out I expect to be receiving dividends for my shares, at the moment, “loyalty rewards” could take their place.
The ability to create your own stations, like Pandora, but no loss of signal on the road ala internet radio. The addition of a such a feature would acknowledge that there is some beauty in exploring new types of music similar to what someone already likes, without having to surf different channels to find it while driving. That can be frustrating is busy traffic, and favorites doesn’t always solve the problem It is the one big feature people like about Pandora, but that Sirius could deliver without interruption. That would make me a Sirius subscriber, and not just a shareholder.
It almost would eliminate the need for the endless different music channels
i would like the satellite radio to have a features that would be able to type and chat to your friends wile listening to the radio at the same time.
1st and foremost I would hope it would be the beginning of the end of having two different type satellites and combine Sirius & Xm into one product. The cost savings and simplifying the brand names into one would be huge.
Simple answer is look at all the patents. The answer is in one or more of them.
Duke, you hit the nail right on the head. If it’s new technology then they will patent it first and then talk about it in depth. On the other hand, if it’s marketing hype, that was discovered a few centuries ago. LOL
Overlaying ads during song play will be huge ad revenue.
And to think all I want to do is listen to music- not text my friends or watch tv while driving, connect to the internet, update my FB page- oops don’t have one, blah, blah, blah.
A real-time stock ticker would be nice and a radio that allows more than 30 artist in the memory. Keep the rest of the garbage.
I’m thinking we 2.0 will be…
1. Album Art
2. Imbedded Data with Music and broadcasts…like stock tickers, artist photos, or some form of ad or sponsorship visual.
what I’d like to see is….
1. Increase in music quality
2. More Pandora like features when connected via Internet.
I hope it makes my new 32GB iPhone (great camera & video; & SIRIUS sounds better) look like ancient technology. But that would be quite a leap for a radio. I hope we are all suprised. I would have dangled one or two concepts or features, but trust Mel’s judjment about that. Maybe that will get leaked (save something for the future). Mel’s stature is growing every day, huh? Right now that is all secondary: what happened to the huge run-up & fall-back? why is the SP steady? Again SIRIUS does not do the anticipated. WHY? WHY?
I know that I’ll probably get flamed for this but here goes. Radio is the perfect media for people with vision loss. Unfortunately, all of the Sirius/XM hardware lacks accessibility for blind people. Some hardware has excellent tactile features but there is no way to access any of the on-screen content such as artist, title, channel, menus, etc. Accessibility has made its way into mainstream technology; think of closed captions on the screen at a bar when you are watching the NFL and cannot hear the volume or the voice output of Ford Sync. Come on SIRI add accessibility to your radios!
Audio quality increase would be nice. If you listen to the POPS classical station, and compare it with all the other music and talk, the POPS station is clearly way higher quality sound. If all the stations went to that high quality, it would be great!
I’d love to see a 24/7 English-language soccer channel, and not just during the FIFA World Cups!
international radio stations. just like we have international tv stations. international radio stations from all over the world. and charge a smal extra fee for that. with our diversity i think it would do great.
I would like to see an affordable video application on the Sirius platform.
my wish list is pretty simple. 1. major league baseball games offered on best of xm to sirius customers. 2. to hear the stereo music on satellite the same way a cd sounds, deep , rich quality, to better compete with the fm-hd sounds. 3. more ‘live’ programming overnight, example (sports talk ) like 24/7, for us 3rd shift workers. these 3 things would make me very very happy!
my wish list. 1. major league baseball games offered on best of xm 2. to hear the stereo music on satellite with the same quality as a CD. 3. more ‘live’ programming overnight, example (sports talk ) like 24/7, for us 3rd shift workers.
I would love to see and expansion of J-Rock(Japanese Rock) Music not currently offered but is found on Pandora, also K-Pop( Korean Pop) music would be something that would be greatly appreciated also add a channel for Urbano music more Latin music stations, korena music German Music and Japanese music would be awesome if added to XM SIrus lineup.
thankyou
2.0 is starting to build up to a WTF moment when it is released. Today I read a Sirius VP state “As previously announced, the transportable tuners will offer replay and time-shift functions, as some current satellite-radio tuners already do. The additional channels will also be available through the company’s Internet-delivered service, which as previously announced will add on-demand music and talk programming early next year. Through the satellite-delivered service, however, on-demand programming — other than recorded time-shifted content — will not be available.” If I read right, there will be nothing new to the retail portable units except some more Latino stations.
WTF!!!
How is that going to be a game changer? The only apparent change will be on the internet side. It takes a year & half to update a website, allowing it to provide on-demand programming?