Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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?
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.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
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.
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.