7 ms·
Wait, what? I’m already surprised SiriusXM is still somehow around, let alone that they have $75 million to invest in another company and not that they’re taki
by kevinherron 7y ago
Wait, what?
I’m already surprised SiriusXM is still somehow around, let alone that they have $75 million to invest in another company and not that they’re taking $75 million to stay afloat...
- eric_cc 7y agoSiriusXM has no competition in the satellite radio space as far as I know.
- unixhero 7y agoUS and Canada only.. sigh
- m4rtink 7y agoThis might actually be the one case where this limitation is not entirely artificial. :-) The SiriusXM sattelites are in an inclined eliptical orbit with the highes point being over the norther hemisphere. This is the so called Molniya orbit, named after the first Soviet sattelites using it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit (Soviet Union had a lot of territory in higher latitudes where geostationary sattelites do not work well & the Molniya orbit needs less energy to achieve.) So in the SiriusXM case, the sattelite would be much too low to provide useful coverage when over the southern hemisphere. And even when. As for not covering EU/Asia - this could be due to either the highest point of the orbit being always over US (guessing there) or due to ground station coverage when the sattelite is not over US.
- johannes1234321 7y agoAnd in addition population density is higher in Europe than U.S., menajng that the density of FM radio (and modern attempts like DAB/DAB+ etc.) and mobile cell base stations is also higher, thus those provide more competition.
- wcfields 7y agoIn 2016 Sirius discontinued broadcasting from tundra orbits. Their newest FM-5 uses geostationary. [1] Satellite radio was tried a few times in other geographies, but only in North America did it succeed. [2] In 1999 Worldspace launched for EMEAI, and looks like it collapsed in 2008. MobaHo! was a mobile satellite digital audio/video broadcasting service in Japan whose services began on October 20, 2004, and ended on March 31, 2009. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit#Spacecraft_using_Tundra_orbits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit#Spacecraft_using_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_radio
- m4rtink 7y agoInteresting, I totally missed that they use GEO now! Still pretty cool that one can receive digital radio without a directional antena from a satellite all the way up 36000 km in GEO. Though looking at the article about Tundra Orbit you have linked it was 25000 x 39000 km already, so not that much of a difference.
- Pigo 7y agoDon't they have some kind of deal with auto manufacturers, putting their system into every car coming off the line?
- mszkoda 7y agoYes, they have different programs with different manufacturers. Almost all of them include between 3-12 months of free service (I think specific lines in Chrysler's lineup across brands are the only ones with 12, Alfa Romeo I know of specifically). A lot of vehicles it's actually considered an "upgrade" to the stereo system and is only included with the more premium package. A lot of people buying cars usually ask about it having Sirius or Satellite radio; they've been adding a lot of new shows and stations like comedians and they have a lot of sports. Their comedy channels are very similar to comedy podcasts and they've been growing this lineup. Having it all integrated into your vehicle without having to plug in your phone is still a big feature with older people and even some younger ones.
- ivl 7y agoThey also own Pandora.
- Kneecaps07 7y agoYeah but their real competition is streaming audio services.
- kingbirdy 7y agoIt used to be that Sirius and XM were two separate companies providing competing services. Unfortunately in 2008 the US DoJ allowed them to merge on the basis that FM & internet radio were sufficient competition.
- tdhoot 7y agoI don't think they were wrong. Sirius or XM may not have survived on their own. XM was on the verge of bankruptcy as it is.
- nolok 7y agoIs the DOJ ever denying merger anymore though? European here so probably biased but I feel like US regulatory tools have taken a serious step back the last 15 / 20 years
- tdhoot 7y agoThe DOJ sued to stop the merger of AT&T and Time Warner (DOJ lost). The DOJ sued to stop the merger of T-Mobile and AT&T when they tried a few years back (AT&T backed down). It also sued to stop the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint (DOJ settled).
- mxschumacher 7y agoThe market cap of SirusXM is almost $32bn, roughly $5bn more than Spotify.
- kevinherron 7y agoWow. I know like every new car comes with a trial but I didn’t realize people actually activated it.
- zippergz 7y agoI use and love it in all of my cars. I have Spotify and Apple Music too, but there's something about actual "radio" without commercials that I enjoy for longer drives.
- ilikehurdles 7y agoSirius is the only decent music discovery service for me since there's some actual human curation going on (at least on their main channel lineup). Spotify is nice when I have playlists prepared and ready to go but that takes work and I get tired of most of my playlist content after a week. Discover Weekly is garbage, and Google Music's version was far worse. Never tried Apple music. But I've also noticed the repetition on SXM but I've settled on 3-4 channels I like so I switch between them to combat staleness.
- koolba 7y agoThey have an incredibly efficient negative cancelation program that hikes the teaser rate to something like $45/mo.
- RandomBacon 7y agoAnd that's why I never even activated XM on my new car even though it came with a 1 year free trial. I have Pandora Plus $5/month.
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- briandear 7y agoThey are a very big deal for aviation. My plane uses XM in-cockpit weather products.
- subhro 7y agoBut ADS-B is catching up and quickly. I understand there are a few additional layers in SXM and the resolution is better when looking at 200+NM. I find SXM weather to be kind of extortion because they use publicly available data and sell it just for packaging it nice.
- myself248 7y agoADS-B isn't a weather product, is it? It tells you where other planes are, it does not tell you about cloud layers, winds-aloft, or other meteorological data. Unless I'm incredibly mistaken. SXM carries this (along with a ton of other products) in their stream, alongside the audio channels that most people know. Their agricultural products, aviation products, stock-market feed, fuel-price data, and more, are valuable to various markets who buy specialized displays with the receivers integrated into them.
- rkochman 7y agoYou are mistaken https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/pilot/#fisb https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/pilot/#fisb
- aaronax 7y agoHow do you feel about all local news channels, all radio stations, and all weather websites using freely available NOAA data as part of their income-producing content? (Or maybe there is some special thing you know of where those outlets have to pay and SXM gets it for free?)
- joezydeco 7y agobecause they use publicly available data and sell it just for packaging it nice. Aren't you missing the part where they're sending it to you 10,000 feet in the air via a satellite constellation? That's a little more than "packaging". You're free to access the public data by any other means you choose.
- jniedrauer 7y agoI thought the same thing until I interviewed there in 2017 and got a look into what they were doing behind the scenes. At the time, they were definitely not struggling. They were working on transitioning their core competency toward streaming services, but their satellite radio business was still alive and well. (I took another offer, which I regret in retrospect, because I ended up working on a Perl 5 stack...)
- TeeWEE 7y agoI don't understand satellite radio.. Ok in an airplane. But why in a car? In the Netherlands all radio is FM and its for free. Why would somebody want satellite radio... I guess there is no full country coverage of FM in USA?
- vel0city 7y agoThere is probably several FM radio stations in range of you wherever you are on the interstates in the United States. However, there may not always be stations in the genres of music you like. The frequencies are also not always consistent so as you travel from city to city you'll have to scan around to find something you may enjoy listening to. Its not like you can tune in to an FM talk radio station in New York and expect to still be listening to the same thing on the same frequency in San Francisco.
- stronglikedan 7y agoThere is, but you won't find a station for every genre everywhere you go. I doubt you'd find that anywhere to be honest.
- dwild 7y agoI never understood it until someone I know had it in his company car. He told me they pay for it because when they do long distance, FM networks would keep switching. That's when I understood their market. The current top comment is from a truck driver that pretty much confirm this. In road trip you never had channels that stop receiving? They pay 5$ a month to avoid to switch in theses situations ;).
- btkramer9 7y agosatellite radio doesn't have commercials
- jupp0r 7y agoOnce you throw mountains into the picture, it becomes pretty hard to have coverage everywhere.
- ktln2 7y agoThey generated > $2 billion revenue during 2019Q4...