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.

Battery Usage?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this would suck up more battery... That seems to be one of the factors many people look at when buying these mp3 players.

Sirius and Apple together - could be good...

[raydobbs]

As a subscriber to Sirius sat. radio AND an owner of Apple machines, I like the idea of being able to hear my favorite sat. radio stations on my iPod. Hopefully, the route they take will finally make that an affordable reality.

iPod format

[adamplas]

How much would this change the format of the iPod? As far as I remember (which isn't much I must admit) satellite radios must require some sort of antenna to pick up the signal. Would a relatively bulky add-in be required to pick up the signal?

Podcasting link here?

[Dark Paladin]

Evidently Sirius will be teaming up with Mr. Adam Curry who helped to make podcasting famous (and could arguably be the "inventor" of podcasting).

This kind of a system may benefit both Sirius and Apple. Rather than trying to make some sort of Apple/Sirius bastard child, perform an Audible like system: subscribers to Sirius could get satellite shows and download them as podcasts as well automatically through iTunes, or do a "Sirius Lite" with delayed Podcast versions of shows available for a monthly fee (again, like Audible).

Apple sells more iPods (especially if they do it as an exclusive), Sirius would get more subscribers (heck, I've no interest in a satellite radio system, but I'd pay a small monthly service fee for good radio/music shows I could auto-sync to my iPod - key word "good"), and consumers - eh, I'll let individuals decide if its good for them or not.

Re:maybe he should keep quiet

[AvantLegion]

Sirius isn't "losing" anything.

Both companies are seeing their subscription numbers soar. XM's lead seems to have little more to do with anything except a head start. Both are seeing growth at similar rapid paces.

Sound quality?

[SamMichaels]

Aside from having to strap an antenna on your head to use this (you'll know what I mean if you've ever used any portable satellite radio), the awful and somewhat embarrassing sound quality will be VERY noticeable when it's played right beside actual CD quality audio. It's gotten so bad with both Sirius and XM that normal non-nerds are complaining about it.

Most of the time you ignore it...but going from a track ripped in Apple lossless format to satellite radio will be like jumping back 10 years in technology.

Re:Screw that

[93 Escort Wagon]

I've thought about buying the Tunestir [ipodlounge.com] , because I like to listen to NPR on the train in the AM. But thanks to RadioRecorder [versiontracker.com] and iPodder [versiontracker.com], I get to do that now anyway - so I don't think I'm missing that FM receiver so much anymore.

Re:Sirius losing to XM? Absofuckinglutley

[AvantLegion]

SIRIUS doesn't just have Stern. Can you say "sports"? Exclusive NFL, exclusive NASCAR soon (ditching XM in favor of SIRIUS, no less), exclusive March Madness... versus XM's exclusive baseball.

SIRIUS has been winning a lot of battles on fronts other than Howard Stern.

Re:iPod vs all comers

[eobanb]

You do know that iTunes can batch-convert WMAs into MP3 or AAC, right? And that AAC, a *standard* audio format, sounds a lot better than WMA? As for the size difference of the Gmini veresus the iPod, smaller player almost always means smaller display, or smaller controls, or smaller battery, or all of these things. Really now, consider an iPod. The seamless music management and better interface alone make it worth it.

Re:Sirius losing to XM? Absofuckinglutley

[Soporific]

I think people will spend $12.95 a month for Stern, plus all the other channels I know I am going to. Not to mention that Clear Channel owns a percentage of XM so even if Howard wasn't on Sirius I wouldn't buy XM because of that connection.

~S

Sirius is a flash in the pan

[hirschma]

XM will get as many as 1 million subcribers every year from their deal with Hyundai - which didn't cost half a billion dollars.

XM currently has 2 million more subs than Sirius. There is simply no way that Sirius is going to catch up, Stern or not.

Sirius paid a lot of money for potential Stern subcribers - at least a couple of hundred bucks each. It is extremely unlikely that Sirius will actually make money on this deal any time soon.

Sirius is betting the farm on some risky deals, while XM has had strong and steady growth - and will absolutely turn a profit years before Sirius does.

Re:What is Sirus?

[Durf]

"I would not want to pay extra for a feature on an iPod if it is useless when I travel to europe."

Or Asia. Hmm, that's two of the three main markets for iPods where this feature won't do any good.

This makes me think that a SiriusPod would be some sort of add-on to the existing iPod model (something to plug into the top, like an iTrip/iTalk). It makes little sense to fracture the model line by creating North American iPods and "other" iPods.

Re:maybe he should keep quiet

[lowrydr310]

Excuse me? There's a lot of good stuff on Sirius that's not no name stuff and not top 40. There are a few channels that play top 40, but there are a lot more that play other music that isn't "no name stuff". Besides, some no name stuff is good and I would hear much of it (in my car at least) without Sirius.

$12.xx a month is well worth it to not have to suffer through commercials.

Re:maybe he should keep quiet

[lowrydr310]

I would hear much of it (in my car at least) without Sirius

I wouldn't hear much of it

D'OH