About Sirius Satellite Radio

Sirius Satellite Radio NASDAQ: SIRI is a satellite radio (DARS) service in the United States that provides 68 streams (channels) of music and 55 streams of sports, news and entertainment. Music streams on Sirius carry a wide variety of music genres, broadcasting 24 hours a day, commercial free. 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. 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”).

Sirius is based in New York City. Its business model is to provide pay-for-service radio, music channels being free of commercials, analogous to the business model for premium cable television. 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 ($15 if activated by phone) is also required. Sirius currently lags behind competitor XM Satellite Radio in terms of subscribers with 3.3 million, well less than XM's current audience of more than 6 million subscribers (as of January 9, 2006). However, Sirius led the market in new satellite radio subscribers in 2005.

Sirius was previously known as CD Radio. 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.

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, $500-million agreement with Howard Stern to move his radio 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 at least two full-time programming channels. 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 of one of his employers, Infinity Broadcasting, as trying to impede the success of his departure.

In Howard Stern's first major hire for Sirius, Stern brought on board Tampa, FL based Bubba the Love Sponge, fired by Clear Channel due to a $750,000 fine proposed by the FCC Reuters, to do a show on Sirius.

In addition to the channel-programming deals, Sirius has also programmed a number of more conventional shows with well known personalities in a number of fields. These shows are hosted by personalities including skateboard legend Tony Hawk, 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 the personalities act as DJs hosting shows with music they personally like.

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 men have always had a great deal of mutual respect for each other. 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) 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.

 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 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. 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.

Sirius also has rights to a number of major college sports conferences, including the 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.

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.

Sirius has also announced Cosmopolitan Radio, which will be added to the lineup sometime in March. Fox News, previously removed from the lineup due to contract disputes, will also return in March.

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 but more severe issue affects the Boeing satellites belonging to competitor XM Radio.

Sirius' satellites are called Radiosat (instead of after the company name), due to there already being a previous fleet of satellites launched also named SIRIUS, launched by Sweden's NSAB (Nordiska Satellitaktiebolaget, or Nordic Satellite AB) and used for general telecommunications and satellite tv throughout Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia.

The Sirius uplink facility is located in Vernon, Sussex County, New Jersey.

Sirius does not use Geostationary satellites. Instead, its three SS/L-1300 satellites fly in geosynchronous (24-hour orbital period) inclined elliptical orbits. Sirius says 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 will remain on the ground, ready to be launched if any of the three active satellites encounter transmission problems.

The Sirius system is similar to that of its competitor. Programs are beamed to one of the three Sirius satellites, which then transmit the signal to the ground, where your radio receiver picks up one of the channels within the signal. Signals are also beamed to ground repeaters for listeners in urban areas where the satellite signal can be interrupted.

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.

Receivers

As of 2005, Sirius receivers are available for various new Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Infiniti, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Lexus, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mercury, Mini, Nissan, Scion, Toyota, Porsche, Volkswagen, and Volvo vehicles, and the service plans on adding availability for portable use. Starting in 2006, all Rolls-Royce vehicles sold in the United States will come with a Sirius radio and lifetime subscription as standard equipment.

They also make many receivers for aftermarket installs as well, including the Sportster Replay, Starmate Replay, Sirius S50 with built in 1GB MP3 player, and the Sirius One. Sirius' hardware lineup is available at Sirius.com