RSSApple Not Serious About Sirius
By David Worthington | Published May 27, 2005, 3:28 PM
Sirius is refusing to confirm reports that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has taken a fancy to the idea of partnering with the satellite radio provider. On Thursday, reports circulated around the Web claiming Mel Karmazin, Sirius chief executive officer, had discussions with Jobs during the D conference in California.
However, Sirius has told BetaNews that Jobs has not expressed any concrete interest thus far.
Apparently this is not the first time Karmazin has attempted to entice Jobs with the idea of pairing satellite radio with Apple's iPod portable music player. In February, MarketWatch published a report stating that Karmazin approached Apple for discussions, but was met with the same result.
Jobs is said to be waiting for compelling content that would justify the development of a hybrid product.
"Mel only said that he had talked to Steve about this and met him recently at the D conference hosted by Walt Mossberg in San Diego. He has not specified any interest from Steve at this point. Just talking. But, yes...we are interested in making our unique programming available over other devices, and are talking to a number of companies about that possibility," a Sirius spokesperson told BetaNews.
"If you look at iPod Shuffle, success comes from offering less, such as nixing FM radios found on other devices. If iPod sells well without the added complexity of terrestrial FM radio, why would Apple want to further complicate matters with subscription-based satellite radio?" commented Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox.
According to press reports, a sticking point with getting device manufacturers to adopt Sirius is said to be how the companies will split the earnings from the service's monthly subscription fee.
"To date, Apple has shown little interest in subscription content for iPod, favoring music people buy. If Apple were ever to do subscriptions, a service complimenting iTunes purchased downloads would make more sense than a third-party service the company couldn't control. The iTunes Music Store has a definite music director's touch and a cool allure complimenting iPod. Apple control is part of the magic recipe," Wilcox added.
Sirius refused to elaborate any further.
I'm not sure why satellite radio needs to hook-up with an iPod type device. Satellite radio is the ultimate iPod once XM and Sirius have a intuitive way to store and retrieve their own content.
An iPod requires too much work for most people. If I hear a song I like I want to just push a button and it's saved. As well, if I don't have time to listen to a news article or a concert I want to be able to easily record it and play it back later.
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What if Sirius merely provides downloadable content for the iPod via the new "podcasting" section of the iTunes Music Store? Rush Limbaugh has already indicated his interest in providing a podcast via iTMS - Sirius could offer a Howard Stern podcast, free for existing Sirius subscribers, available for a reasonable fee for non-subscribers. Sirius might also consider offering downloads of live artist performances for 99c each.
Hopefully, such a deal wouldn't be exclusive to Sirius, as XM could provide its content such as Bob Edwards and Opie & Anthony via iTMS podcast in much the same way.
I think this would be a way for Apple to safely let satellite radio providers participate in the iPod without giving up too much control or introducing a subscription model.
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Bah. If they wanted a radio, it'd be an FM based solution. Could even be DAB! Then it'd be free.
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