Sirius in Negotiations With Apple

An anonymous reader writes "Sirius Satellite Radio Chief Executive Mel Karmazin announced that his company is in talks with Apple about bringing satellite radio to the iPod. Karmazin met with Steve Jobs Monday and he says the technology is the easy part. The hard part is negotiating just how they will split the profit from equipment and monthly subscriptions." We've covered this before, but now it seems they are getting "more Sirius," or something.

"the difficult part"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the difficult part is neither the income sharing neither the technology. It's the antenna. Maybe Apple should come up with a sexy designer hat made of titanium that has the satellite antenna on top. That would kick ass.

He spoke to EVERYONE, not just Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

said the company has "had discussions with everyone," including makers of cell phones, digital music players and other devices.

It wasn't just Apple, its just a generalized thing

Re:maybe he should keep quiet

[Soporific]

I doubt Sirius is going to be losing out to XM after Stern starts broadcasting there.

~S

Re:What is Sirus?

[Humorously_Inept]

The CRTC has not approved services like Sirius and XM in Canada yet, but expect to have either or both here soon. It's basically high quality digital, (largely) commercial-free, subscription-based radio programming.

I don't know that there's any technical reason why you couldn't receive satellite radio in Canada, but neither company will sell it to you. Likewise, if you're an American passing through Canada there's no reason why your satellite radio wouldn't work. I guess that reception in Europe and elsewhere would depend on how they have their satellites positioned and what kind of orbits they are in.

Re:iPod format

[BladeRider]

The xm radio MyFi/XM2Go portable sat system has a small antenna. Slightly larger than a Chapstick tube. I'm sure the sirius system would require something similar. And, like the home/auto version, it requires a clear shot to the southern sky or your reception suffers.

Jeff

Re:Screw that

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes there are... [ipodlounge.com]

Re:XM is done

[SteveXE]

You people laugh and make jokes but Stern is a HUGE market, I know of 8 people who are buring Sirius when Stern moves over, they are waiting but they are gonna buy one. If only 5% of his listeners move that will put Sirius in the #1 spot and crush XM.

Re:Sound quality?

[Mr2001]

Agreed. My mom has XM in her new Accord, and she noticed that Sirius in my Corolla sounded better. Sirius's artist and song title fields are at least 3 times longer than XM's, IIRC.

And for political talk fans, Sirius carries a full Air America feed (as well as their own TalkLeft stream, and two corresponding conservative streams) instead of the mangled Clear Channel version that XM has, which replaces some of Air America's shows with others like Ed Schultz and (*gag*) Alan Colmes.

Content is not King

[hirschma]

And while they have all of this content, they only got it by dramatically overpaying for it. XM has, to their credit, refused to play that game. Meanwhile, Sirius has been ignoring certain less sexy aspects that drives growth in this medium.

Sirius is losing the car partnership race. Folks that buy new cars have something like a 30-50% conversion rate for whatever ships in the cars. That is becoming, increasingly, XM. Their new deal with Hyundai is going to probably bring in more subscribers than Stern ever would, but it didn't cost half a billion.

Sirius is also seen as losing the hardware race. They don't have the resources to make desirable hardware. XM isn't doing the best here, either, but they're doing better than Sirius.

Lastly, Sirius cannot afford to launch another sat, and they need to. They're going to burn a lot of money keeping a repeater network going. XM has the resources to continue lofting birds, and saving money from having less of a ground presence - and eventually, having the sat bandwidth to offer new services.

The fact is that Sirius is acting a lot like a dot.com company. They're betting that they get a lot more subscribers before they burn through the cash - and I think that's a bet that they're going to lose.

Sirius will be calling for a secondary stock offering soon. I'm sure that Stern is going to be just thrilled when his huge deal suddenly is worth a whole lot less. That will be the beginning-of-the-end event for Sirius.

jh

Re:Podcasting link here?

[Billy Donahue]

FYI: Adam Curry's "Pod Show" [podshow.com]
is already ON [sirius.com] Sirius everyday.

Re:Content is not King

[hirschma]

Nope, but I do get paid to know which service will win :)

Re:Content is not King

[dieman]

You, my friend, are crazy.

While XM's sattelites are generally way, way, way out there on the horizon near 30 degrees, Sirius has a sattelite (three in opposing orbits) over 60-90 degrees overhead. This is why XM has to worry about a repeater network and that Sirus doesn't have to deploy nearly as many repeaters. (ie: cities with tall buildings, not just places with semi-tall buildings) Its not an indication that 'Oh sirius has less repeaters so its not as good.' Its: "Oh, they picked a far better technology for mobile radio reception from sattelites."

Re:Content is not King

[Gibberlins]

Sirius is much better with their sat placements. I have worked in open pit coal mines and *everyone* uses Sirius because XM will drop out when you get up next to a sidewall and Sirius will not.

Sirius Losing Car Partnership race?

[ras_b]

Sirius is losing the car partnership race. Folks that buy new cars have something like a 30-50% conversion rate for whatever ships in the cars. That is becoming, increasingly, XM. Their new deal with Hyundai is going to probably bring in more subscribers than Stern ever would, but it didn't cost half a billion.

from the Sirius website:

Aston Martin
BMW
Chrysler
DaimlerChrysler
Dodge
Fle etwood Enterprises
Ford
Hertz
Infiniti
Jaguar
Jeep
Land Rover
Lincoln
MINI
Mazda
Mercedes-Benz
Mercur y
Monaco Coach Corporation
Nissan
Volvo
...and Toyota- though not listed on their web site

from xm's web site:

General Motors Corporation
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Toyota
Audi
Nissan North America

yes, they both have toyota and nissan. Doesn't really look like Sirius is losing the car partnership race. And how is Sirius losing the hardware race? don't feel like researching that one right now but i didn't see your proof for that either.