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Sirius Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio (DARS) services operating in the United States and Canada. XM Radio is the other (DARS) provider . Headquartered in New York City, (with smaller studios in Los Angeles) Sirius provides 69 streams (channels) of music and 65 streams of sports, news and entertainment to listeners. Music streams on Sirius carry a wide variety of music genres, broadcasting 24 hours a day, commercial-free. A subset of Sirius music channels are included as part of the Dish Network satellite television service. Sirius channels are identified by Arbitron with the label “XS” (e.g. “XS120”, “XS9”, “XS17”). With any Sirius-enabled radio, the user can see the artist and song information on display while listening to the stream. The streams are broadcast from three satellites in an elliptical geosynchronous orbit above North America. Its business model is to provide pay-for-service radio, analogous to the business model for premium cable television, in which music channels are free of commercials. Subscription costs for Sirius range from $12.95/mo. to $499.99 for a lifetime subscription (of the receiver, not the subscriber). A $10 activation fee if activated online($15 if activated by phone) is also required. Sirius currently has fewer subscribers compared to competitor XM Satellite Radio, with 5.1 million (as of October 4th, 2006), less than XM's current audience of roughly 6.89 million (as of July 6, 2006). However, Sirius is gaining new subscribers at a faster rate than XM. Sirius was previously known as CD Radio. The company changed its name to Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. on November 18, 1999. The dog in the Sirius logo (Sirius is referred to as the "Dog Star") is unofficially named “Mongo,” a name garnered from the debut of Sirius Satellite Radio’s sponsorship on Casey Atwood’s and later Jimmy Spencer’s NASCAR entry, when the announcing cast voted on names. “Mongo” later became NASCAR driver Spencer’s nickname with the NASCAR Broadcasters in the following races. On October 16, 2006 Sirius announced that it would be launching Sirius Internet Radio with approximately 75 of its 135 stations being available worldwide on the internet to any of its subscribers with a valid user name and password. A separate online only subsrciption is available as well for people who want the radio but do not want to purchase the equipment. The cost for this is the same as the monthly plan at $12.95 a month. *
Howard Stern and other high profile content A major component of Sirius business strategy has been to execute far-reaching and exclusive deals with big-name entertainers and personalities to create and build broadcast streams, from the ground up. Sirius has reached extensive deals with domestic diva Martha Stewart, E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt (aka Little Steven), Jimmy Buffett, and Eminem to executive produce streams on Sirius. By far the biggest of these deals was announced on October 6, 2004 when Sirius announced that it signed a five-year, $100-million per year agreement with Howard Stern to move his radio show, The Howard Stern Show, to Sirius starting on January 9, 2006. The deal, which gave Sirius exclusive rights to Stern’s radio show, also gave Stern the right to build three full-time programming channels. (Currently, Stern has two operating channels on Sirius, but still retains the right to a third.) Stern stated that his move was forced by the stringent regulations of the FCC whose enforcement was intensified following the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show. Beginning with the announcement of his imminent departure, Stern began to complain that Infinity Broadcasting was trying to make his departure more acrimonious than was necessary. Howard Stern's first major hire for Sirius was Tampa, FL based Bubba the Love Sponge. He had previously been fired by Clear Channel due to a $750,000 fine proposed by the FCC. In addition to the channel-programming deals, Sirius also programs a number of more conventional shows with well known personalities in a number of fields. This includes shows by high energy sports show host Scott Ferrell, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, skateboarder and MTV personality Bam Margera, seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, The B-52's lead singer Fred Schneider, NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton and longtime New York City DJ “Cousin Brucie”, who was dropped by WCBS-FM after the station changed to its format from an oldies station to a “Jack” format. Generally each personality hosts shows that play the music he/she personally prefers. On November 18, 2004 the former COO and President of Viacom, Mel Karmazin, was named the CEO of Sirius. Stern worked under Karmazin at Infinity Radio and the two appeared to always have a great deal of mutual respect. It was Karmazin who fiercely protected Stern in the wake of the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show (produced by MTV and aired by CBS, both co-owned with Infinity-now CBS Radio-until CBS Corporation split off in 2006) and the FCC crackdown on shock jocks and obscenity, in general. On October 25, 2005 Sirius announced that "E Street Radio", the exclusive channel of legendary artist Bruce Springsteen, would air from November 1, 2005 to January 31, 2006 on the Bridge - Channel 10. On September 14, 2006, The Bridge was replaced again, by The Who Channel. This special limited-run channel will return to The Bridge in January 2007. Sports Another cornerstone of Sirius’ business strategy has been to pursue exclusive sports content. Currently, Sirius has exclusive satellite radio broadcasting rights to all NFL, CFL and NBA games. Sirius also announced in December 2005 a multi-year deal with the NBA, which makes the satellite radio company the broadcaster of more live NBA games than any other radio outlet. Sirius airs Full Court Press, weekdays from 12pm-3pm ET; FCP is the only all-NBA show on Sirius. The agreement also creates a 24-hour NBA Radio Channel, located on channel 127. NHL games will be shared with XM for the 2005–2006 season, after which XM will have exclusive broadcast rights. Starting in 2007, Sirius will have full NASCAR coverage, including, among other programs, a two hour weekly show hosted by NASCAR driver Tony Stewart. Sirius also has rights to a number of major college sports teams, including teams in the Big East, Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference as well as schools like Notre Dame. Beginning in 2005 Sirius also has exclusive radio rights to cover the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. In August 2004, Sirius launched NFL Radio, a 24-hour radio stream dedicated exclusively to covering the NFL. Sirius has also been aggressive in creating its own in-house produced studio sports radio content. Sirius also broadcasts select English Premier League matches, in addition to airing World Soccer Daily, a Monday-Friday two hour talk show dedicated to soccer, and has inked an exclusive deal with two-time defending EPL champion Chelsea. Continuing their major expansion of soccer coverage, Sirius announced a deal to add UEFA Champions League soccer to their lineup on September 27, 2006. Other content In June 2005, Sirius signed an agreement with BBC Radio 1 in the UK to rebroadcast the station to an American audience. Sirius also has exclusive satellite radio rights to National Public Radio, carrying two separate streams. The deal with NPR was the first high-profile deal entered into by Sirius. With the launch of Sirius Canada in December 2005, American listeners gained five Canadian-produced stations including CBC Radio One, CBC Radio Three and Iceberg Radio in English, and Première Plus and Bandeapart in French. Iceberg Radio is programmed by Standard Broadcasting, which also provides a number of additional channels exclusive to Canada; the other four come from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After a delay and outcry from Canadian subscribers, Sirius Canada added Howard Stern's Channel 100 to their lineup in early 2006. Channel 101, Stern's other channel (featuring Bubba the Love Sponge, Scott Ferrall, and other personalities), were made available in late June 2006. On Channel 17, listeners can partake in "Jambands" on the all-jam station, JamOn, which features Stef Scamardo, the wife of Allman Brothers Band and Gov't Mule guitarist/vocalist, Warren Haynes. Talk radio content recently added onto Sirius Satellite Radio include the ABC News and Talk channel 143 (which includes live feeds of Sean Hannity and Larry Elder's popular syndicated radio shows), Patriot Talk channel 144 (which includes Michael Reagan's well-known syndicated radio show) and Fox News Talk channel 145 (which includes syndicated radio hosts such as Alan Colmes and John Gibson). On March 14, 2006, Sirius added Cosmopolitan Radio, Playboy Radio, and returned the audio simulcast of the Fox News Channel TV feed, which was previously removed during a contract dispute. The service also added Fox's satellite talk radio channel, Fox News Talk. Hard Attack is Sirius' heavy metal station. It plays all types of metal, from classic metal such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, to thrash metal such as Testament, Overkill, and Kreator, to death metal such as Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel. It features three specialty shows: "Beyond the Pit," which is dedicated to playing death metal, black metal, and grindcore; "Contact High," which is dedicated to playing doom, sludge, and stoner metal, as well as "stoner rock," which is arguably not metal; and "Bloody Roots," hosted by Sound of the Beast author Ian Christe, which features a different topic each week relating to the history of metal. Sirius Business Background Music for Businesses In August 2003, Sirius partnered with Clearwater, Florida - based Applied Media Technologies Corporation, a provider of telephone "on hold" messaging. AMTC, as the exclusive marketing partner for business subscriptions, provides Sirius service in a package branded as Sirius Business. For $24.95 per month, AMTC provides all of Sirius' streams of commercial-free music, and pays all performance royalties to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, so that business owners may legally play Sirius' music in their establishments. Sirius Business is the preferred or mandatory music solution for over 70 companies, including Huddle House, Big Boy Restaurants, Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, Yum Brands (including Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silver's, and A&W), Wendy's and Piggly Wiggly. In conjunction with the Sirius receivers and subscriptions, AMTC offers branded speakers, amplifiers, and public-address systems, including commercial-grade satellite antennas. Unlike the music services Muzak, Music Choice, XM for Business, or DMX Music, the Sirius business music services use the same channels and SDARS delivery platform as the consumer Sirius service, including music interruptions such as sounders and DJ talk. The SDARS delivery platform, on the other hand, is more reliable than any of the other services in that it is not subject to satellite dish rain fade or broadband Internet outages. Unfortunately the highly elliptical orbit of the SIRIUS satellite constellation poses difficultites for the reliable delivery of the signal to a stationary antenna. To solve this potential problem Sirius intends to launch a geostationary satellite * to serve non-mobile customers such as those of SIRIUS Business. Sirius satellites Sirius’ spacecraft Radiosat 1 through Radiosat 4 were manufactured by Space Systems/Loral. The first three of the series were orbited in 2000 by Proton-K Block-DM3 launch vehicles. Radiosat 4 is a ground spare, in storage at SS/Loral’s facility in Palo Alto, California. The series of satellites from which they come, the SS/Loral LS-1300, is known to have problems with their solar array cells — a similar issue affects the Boeing satellites belonging to competitor XM Radio. Sirius' satellites are named Radiosat because there is already a fleet of satellites named SIRIUS, launched by Sweden's NSAB (Nordiska Satellitaktiebolaget, or Nordic Satellite AB, and known today as SES SIRIUS) and used for general telecommunications and satellite television throughout Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. The primary uplink facility for Sirius is located in Vernon, Sussex County, New Jersey. Sirius does not as yet use geostationary satellites, though plans to expand their network in 2008 will add one. Currently, its three LS-1300 satellites fly in geosynchronous highly elliptical orbit in a 24-hour orbital period. Sirius claims the elliptical path of its satellite constellation ensures that each satellite spends about 16 hours a day over the continental United States, with at least one satellite over the country at all times. Sirius completed its three-satellite constellation on November 30, 2000. A fourth satellite remains on the ground in Palo Alto, California as a spare ready to be launched if any of the three active satellites encounter transmission problems. All three satellites broadcast directly to the consumer's receiver, but due to the highly elliptical orbit only two of them broadcast at any given time. A third, separate signal is uplinked to the AMC-6 Ku-band satellite and received by 36-inch satellite dishes for the ground repeater network. This third signal is broadcast on a third segment of the signal. There is an intentional four-second delay between each segment of the signal. This enables the receiver to maintain a large buffer of the audio stream, which, along with forward error correction helps keep the audio playing in the event that the signal is temporarily lost, such as when driving under an overpass or otherwise losing line-of-sight of any of the satellites or ground repeater stations. Sirius offers car radios and home entertainment systems, as well as car and home kits for portable use. The Sirius receiver includes two parts — the antenna module and the receiver module. The antenna module picks up signals from the ground repeaters or the satellite, amplifies the signal and filters out any interference. The signal is then passed on to the receiver module. Inside the receiver module is a chipset consisting of eight chips. The chipset converts the signals from 2.3 gigahertz (GHz) to a lower intermediate frequency. Sirius also offers an adapter that allows conventional car radios to receive satellite signals. Sirius broadcasts using 12.5 MHz of the S band between 2320 and 2332.5 MHz. Audio channels are digitally compressed using a proprietary variant of Lucent's Perceptual audio coder compression algorithm and encrypted with a proprietary Conditional access system. Sirius has announced that they intend to implement hierarchical modulation techology to economize on bandwidth up to 25%. * On June 8, 2006, Space Systems/Loral announced that it was awarded a contract for the fifth Sirius spacecraft *. The new spacecraft will feature a nine-meter unfurlable reflector. The first four Sirius spacecraft used more traditional parabolic reflectors. The new satellite has been designed for geostationary orbit, unlike the other satellites in the constellation; the different orbit has the stated purpose of allowing for more consistent reception for fixed location users (many subscribers have reported having to regularly reposition their antennae for optimal reception). Receivers
Receiver Technology At the heart of a receiver is a custom ASIC chip called the baseband processor, such as the STA240, which is produced by STMicroelectronics. The chip contains embedded ARM7TDMI and ARM9 microprocessors synthesized from IP cores. One of the processors handles decryption and subscription information, while the other handles audio decompression and control interface functions. Another major section of a Sirius receiver is the tuner. The tuner is also comprised of a custom ASIC, one of which is the STA210. The tuner connects to the antenna, and receives the incoming satellite and terrestrial signals at 2.3 GHz and downcoverts them to intermediate frequency signals at around 75 MHz. These analog signals are fed to the STA240, which are digitized and demodulated, decrypted, and demultiplexed to select the desired channel from the bitstream. Another major component is the head unit, or user interface, to display text and change the channel. This is implemented by third party designers of Sirius-ready receivers. The head unit communicates with the baseband chip over a simple two-wire RS-232 interface using the Sirius Standard Protocol. The baseband chip outputs digital audio from over standard I2S interface, which is fed to a D/A converter to produce the audio signal. As of November, 2006, Canadian-targetted channels 185 Canada Weather, 187 Info Plus, 188 RCI Plus, 192 Rock Velours, and 193 Energie 2 only appear for U.S. subscribers on newer receivers. Sirius has not yet revealed why these channels, which debuted on September 26, 2006, are not available to users with older equipment. Speculation on one fan site suggests that these channels use the new hierarchical modulation system which is only implemented on the newer receivers. *. Radio stations Subscribers Sirius in Canada In November, 2004, a partnership between Sirius, Standard Broadcasting and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation filed an application with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to introduce Sirius in Canada. The application was approved on June 16, 2005. The decision was appealed to the Canadian federal cabinet by a number of broadcasting, labour, and arts and culture organizations, including the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, CHUM Limited, and the National Campus and Community Radio Association. The groups objected to Sirius’ approach to and reduced levels of Canadian content and French language programming, along with the exclusion of Canadian non-commercial broadcasting. After a lengthy debate, cabinet rejected the appeals on September 9, 2005. Sirius Canada was officially launched December 1, 2005. Sirius Internet Radio In October 2006, Sirius announced that it was launching a new service named Sirius Internet Radio * that would, for the first time, offer approximately 75 of the 135 Sirius channels worldwide to people other than subscribers to its satellite radio service. Prior to this, Sirius subscribers who had a satellite radio were also able to access many of the Sirius channels via the internet, using a special password, but the service was not available except to those who purchased a satellite radio receiver. Sirius Internet Radio(SIR) is an internet-only subscription, allowing worldwide listeners to listen to the content without having to purchase a satellite radio receiver. The service also expands the number of channels that are available to Stiletto users via WiFi. Sirius Internet Radio also offers a premium level service for an extra $2.99 per month. The premium service features CD quality sound and the addition of several talk radio programs. See also Official Sirius Satellite Radio websites Partners Sirius Fan Sites Inside Sirius Alliance This is a network of five authoritative fan sites/forums/blogs which track issues related to Sirius. They include: Sirius Satellite Information Links | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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