Sirius Satellite Radio logo, used since 2003
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Division | |
Industry | Broadcasting – Radio |
Fate | merged with XM Satellite Radio |
Successor | Sirius XM Satellite Radio |
Founded | May 17, 1990 |
Founder |
Martine Rothblatt David Margolese Robert Briskman |
Defunct | January 13, 2011 |
Headquarters | New York City, New York, United States |
Products | Satellite radio |
Number of employees
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1,514 (2010) |
Parent | Sirius XM Holdings |
Website | www |
Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Holdings.
Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002, and currently 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 genres, broadcasting 24 hours daily, commercial-free, and uncensored. A subset of Sirius music channels is included as part of the Dish Network satellite television service. Sirius channels are identified by Nielsen Audio with the label "SR" (e.g. "SR120", "SR9", "SR17").
Its business model is to provide pay-for-service radio, analogous to the business model for premium cable television. Music channels are presented without commercials while talk channels, such as Howard Stern's Howard 100 and Howard 101 and Opie Radio do have regular commercials. Furthermore, all channels are free from FCC content regulation, thus songs are played unedited for language, and talk programs may feature explicit content if they wish. Subscriptions are prepaid and range in price from US$14.99 monthly (US$9.99 for each additional receiver) to US$699.99 for lifetime (of the receiver equipment) subscription. There is a US$15 activation fee for every radio activated. Sirius announced it had achieved its first positive cash flow quarter for the period ending December 2006.
Sirius launched its radio service in four states on February 14, 2002, expanding service to the rest of the contiguous U.S. by July of that year. On October 16, 2006, Sirius announced that it would be launching Sirius Internet Radio, with 78 of its 135 channels being available worldwide on the internet to any of its subscribers with a valid user name and password.