With CDs and MP3s delivering homeowners’ favorite tunes on demand, radio doesn’t pop to mind as one of the more enticing features of a whole-house audio system. But thanks to a new crop of transportable satellite radio products, radio may re-emerge as one of the hot sources for multi-room music.
XM Satellite Radio and Sirius are the two competing services in the subscription-based radio market. Both use the space-saving streams of digital compression to deliver more than 100 channels of music, news, sports, and other programming to land-based receivers. From rebroadcasts of ’30s and ’40s-era radio dramas to the latest hip-hop and salsa music, digital satellite radio offers the most comprehensive swath of audio programming this side of the Internet.
The obvious outlet for such a broad array of audio programming is a car or truck, which is where the services have targeted much of their energy to date. But XM Radio’s recent success during 2003 with the first portable satellite radio—Delphi’s SKYFi—has demonstrated that consumers want access both inside and outside of the car.
“Most of the market was initially thought to be the factory-installed radio market,” says Chance Patterson, vice president of corporate affairs at XM, “but what’s happened is the majority of subscribers have come from retail and most of them are buying integration units that connect to existing stereos.” Both companies have given their manufacturing clients license to sell removable modules that can travel from the car to the home or boat, where they can plug into an audio receiver just like any other source.
Satellite radio hasn’t exactly stormed the market to date, but its proponents cite lack of awareness and promotion as part of initial growing pains. Sirius beamed to 68,000 subscribers mid-year and is expected to reach 300,000 by the end of the year. XM, with 600,000 subscribers in June, forecast 1.2 million subscribers by the end of fourth quarter.
But both companies have seen their stock rise this year, based on heady forecasts for the future of the market. Sirius’ agreement with Hertz to supply 33 airport rental locations with satellite radios is expected to boost awareness, and XM reports that more cars will come equipped with XM this year to improve availability. XM will be available in 70 2004 models either as standard or a dealer option, and 65 models will have the Sirius option by fourth quarter 2003.
In an age when broadcast radio comes under increasing criticism for homogenization of sound, satellite radio offers something for everyone. Dedicated channels for unsigned bands, opera, music decades from the ’40s through the ’90s, folk, regional Mexican, African, and Caribbean music join subgenres of classical, rock, and jazz to give users a reason to have more than five or 10 presets. Both services also feature interviews and live recordings.
News and information stations include CNN, BBC, Fox, ABC, and Bloomberg News. ESPN, The Sporting News, NASCAR Radio, and Fox Sports deliver sports programming, and other channels come by way of Discovery, E! Entertainment, The Weather Channel, and even Playboy.
With some 100 channels to fill, there’s a lot of overlap in the music and news genres in satellite radio. Decades music, rock, classical, country, rap, jazz, and Latin music, for example, are covered thoroughly by both services. A few Sirius exclusives include Turntablism, a channel devoted to DJs and their scratching and cutting acumen; OutQ, a channel targeted to the gay and lesbian community; and NPR news and feature programming. XM exclusives include audio books, programming from radio’s golden days, Playboy, and others.
According to Patterson of XM, most listeners listen to fewer than five channels on a regular basis. “People get close to and feel familiarity with certain channels and then they become regulars, fans,” he says. “They’re engaged and they feel a connection.”
Initial home kits are makeshift solutions designed to expand the use of XM and Sirius radio outside of the car. Coming generations of products will be integrated into other product categories including audio/video receivers, boom boxes, and dedicated tuners for custom applications.
This fall Sirius and XM will announce partners for single- and multi-zone products. The latter will allow consumers to tune multiple satellite radio stations at one time and listen to different channels in different rooms of the house. Kenwood will introduce a single-tuner version that will ship in September, and Audio Design Associates is currently shipping a four-tuner XM module that can be daisy-chained to offer 28 zones in total. The companies are making the introductions at the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) trade show in September, the primary launching pad each year for products in the custom electronics market.
Kenwood’s tuner, like more and more components introduced at CEDIA, has RS-232 integration, meaning that it can be controlled by touchscreen or LCD-based panels from Crestron, AMX, and others. In the early days of whole-house audio, homeowners had a choice of a CD player, a couple of radio stations, and a cassette deck, but there were no digital tags attached to the music to label it by artist, genre, or title. You could see that a CD was playing but not which one.
Digital music, however, is coded with lots of useful information. Now that the choices for music have exploded for consumers, having access to 100 satellite radio stations and thousands of MP3 files is only a blessing if they know which song or station they’re selecting. The bidirectional feedback made possible by Category 5 communication cable is crucial for next-generation multi-room music products like audio hard drives and satellite radio that store vast amounts of music and channels.
XM is currently working with Neural Audio on technology that improves the dynamic range of the satellite music signal. The next-generation circuitry will improve the quality of current broadcasts and enable high-quality multi-channel surround-sound broadcasts to take advantage of home theater systems. “Why not take XM into the home?” says Phil Whitworth, director of marketing for XM. “Our SKYFi product has had far more uptake than we initially forecast. That’s a clear indication that people want better audio content in the home.” Rebecca Day specializes in writing about home electronics. She can be reached at rebecca362@aol.com.
