SiriusXM’s Personalized Radio – Spotted At CES
A little birdie out at CES says that SiriusXM was quietly showing its version of personalized radio called internally called MyControl. Watch out Pandora, SiriusXM is getting ready to step into your turf. While details are still fuzzy, rumor has it that SiriusXM’s personalized radio will allow listeners to better control their audio experience by letting users make more narrow musical taste selections and perhaps even limit DJ chatter and station bumpers.
SiriusXM personalized radio will be a definite value added service to existing subscribers and could be the start of a service that carries a reach of its own with consumers. The service does stop short of full customization offered by the likes of Spotify and Slacker, but does give users much more control over their listening experience than they currently have. It will be interesting to see if the new SiriusXM, under Liberty Media control, embraces the Internet side of the business as more than a value added proposition.
SiriusXM personalized radio was supposed to launch in Q4. That launch was delayed for unknown reasons, but could include a desire to make the product more robust. I expect to see personalized radio available to consumers sometime in Q1 of 2013. The product is in a beta testing phase now.
UPDATE:
SiriusXM’s personalized radio will carry different branding than MyControl. The name is internal in nature. The feature set and customization is based on the already current expertly curated channel line-up and will enhance the user experience to a level that will help drive the subscription model toward a more feature rich SiriusXM All Access. All Access provides both Sirius and XM based channels as well as SiriusXM Internet Radio. Because SiriusXM’s personalized radio is IP based, subscribers will want to upgrade to a service level that includes SiriusXM Internet Radio in order to utilize personalized radio features. More than ever before, the Internet side of SiriusXM’s service is becoming a catalyst for greater features as well as greater revenue for the company. Stay Tuned!
The CES thing doesn’t add up. You can’t find any mention of this anywhere on Twitter or Google except for the one saying some one told me they heard about it. Nobody else at the CES saw this? Or does no one care about it? It is odd you can’t find any mention of it.
Scott from SatelliteGuys.US posted a teaser CES video of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....Vq78V-8MZY
Spencer, any clues as to how deep the song selections will be? I don’t hold out much hope for this if you only get the same inventory (albeit customized)of songs that say, The Pink Floyd Channel offers.
For example, now, when I go to the Floyd channel I tend to see too often “Another Brick in the Wall”, or “Meddle” but fat chance if I’m going to ever hear “Arnold Layne” or “Pow R Toch” etc. The same thing applies with the Classic College Channel.
My point is, Pandora(which I only recently tried) gives me a richer and deeper choice of music. What will MyControl give us that may revive the actual depth of inventory that the original XM company used to be better at than SiriusXM?
Sorry for the long-winded question, but as a “long suffering” shareholder finally seeing gains, it concerns me that I may have to go Pandora, etal for greater and deeper music choices. Thanks.
Patience is a virtue, the only place this company has to go is up, and with the new ownership, I’m pretty confident that it will…Comparing siri and pandora….pandora is 14yrs old and still hasnt turned a profit…a bulk of their users are freeloaders and kids…I look at siri as a 4yr old company since the merger and look where it is today….its shooting for the stars..
13 years old, no profit, and yet they still do a better job with music — I hate to admit it.
And of course SiriusXM will do another outstanding job of keeping this new feature Top Secret and only advise current subscribers (the choir) about this. Heaven forbid they do a robust marketing (ever hear that word and SiriusXM in the same sentence?)campaign to, oh I don’t know, perhaps bring in new virgin customers. Wouldn’t it be nice if people would walk into showrooms and say “I want a car…and it has to have that Sirius thing I have been hearing so much about”. Pipe dream.
maybe no one here has heard, but siriusxm is running a contest at various colleges across the country…the winner gets to host their own show free for a few months, that’s a pretty good marketing strategy to the younger generation…….bunch of complainers on here….give it some time…they had to get their financial house in order first. Pandora does a better job with music….how about siri’s new studio in Texas and all the live town hall shows they are doing….whats Pandora doing that’s better than that…except maybe adding features to their jukebox!!!
One of the best music services out there in my opinion right now is Slacker. I wish SIRI would steal a page or two from the Slacker playbook
“MyControl” has been trademarked since October by Sirius and has been included in the Privacy Policy on the Sirius website since November. It would be odd that they change the name before launch, but Sirius does do odd things.
http://www.siriusxm.com/pdf/si.....cy_eng.pdf
It’s in public beta now.