As CEO Mel Karmazin mentioned in the company’s Q2 details, Sirius XM Radio has launched SiriusXM On Demand, giving its Internet Radio subscribers listening via its online media player and on Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, the ability to choose their favorite episodes from a catalog of more than 200 shows and over 2,000 hours of content to listen whenever they want.
SiriusXM On Demand will give subscribers at no extra charge:
–Recent Shows: Access to more than 200 shows from exclusive talk and entertainment, commercial-free music, comedy, and sports.
–Selections from The Vaults: For the first time, SiriusXM is curating and making selections from its vast audio archives—spanning many years of exclusive shows, specials and series—accessible to listeners.
–Updated content: SiriusXM’s On Demand offerings will be updated daily with great selections from its audio entertainment catalog, and the available catalog will be expanded on a regular basis.
–Featured Content: Regularly updated “Featured” section allows subscribers to discover more content, including timely interviews, brand new shows, “pop-up” channels, and seasonal series.
–Easy Navigation: Using a mouse or finger, listeners can scan what’s playing or easily find a specific point on many shows.
SiriusXM listeners will have On Demand access to over 2,000 hours of SiriusXM content, including more than 200 shows from sports, comedy, exclusive talk and entertainment, and commercial-free music from many genres such as The Howard Stern Show, Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure, select Jimmy Buffett concerts, The Opie & Anthony Show, The Jamie Foxx Show, Ask Martha featuring Martha Stewart, Dr. Laura, The Bob Edwards Show, Mad Dog Unleashed featuring Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, Ripken Baseball, Rotten Tomatoes Radio and more.
SiriusXM listeners will also have access to curated selections from deep within the SiriusXM archives, including SiriusXM’s exclusive Artist Confidential series and Town Hall specials with Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Tom Petty, Usher, Ringo Starr, Coldplay, Nirvana, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Coach K, and many others. In addition, listeners will get access to exclusive subscriber events, music specials, interviews from across SiriusXM’s sports channels, and much more.
On Demand programming will be presented with minimal commercials on select shows. Music programming will have no commercials.
SiriusXM Internet Radio subscribers listening on Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch will also be able to store select On Demand shows for a period of time on their devices and listen to content when not connected to the Internet. This allows offline listening while traveling on planes or anywhere at anytime without a wireless connection. Subscribers will also get automatic notifications when favorite programs become available for On Demand listening on Apple mobile devices.
SiriusXM On Demand will also soon be available on compatible Android devices.
RBR-TVBR observation: SiriusXM has been very smart in capitalizing on internet radio listening from the start. The pricing for internet listening is very competitive with other commercial-free online-only music services. When more cars roll out with their own internet access that requires no smartphone, it will be more competitive for SiriusXM to survive, charging monthly fees. Having an internet customer base already established (with all of the bells and whistles in the offering) is a good hedge.
This is big advancement for SiriusXM because it shows they are working on IP delivery which is the next battleground for radio. SiriusXM has about 650 shows so 200 shows represents about 1/3rd of the shows they carry. Consumers increasily expect media on demand and that’s especially true if they’re paying $15/month.
The open question is will AM/FM radio companies respond or are they content to focus on terrestrial delivery?
AM/FM has about 20,000 shows so they have a much deeper offering but they’re owned by many companies. DAR.fm is a very comprehensive guide compiling all AM/FM shows into one catalog and making them available near demand because listeners can record them and listen on demand.
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