This is one of the better Sirius XM deals I’ve ever come across. This week only you can get the same employee discount that, yes, employees receive. That means, for example, you can get the XMP3 portable radio for $115, which is down from $230.

The deal is for both halves of the satellite radio company, mind you: the Stiletto 2 is $150 this week, down from $299.

These are fine deals, you have to admit. Granted, I listen exclusively online (I use a program called Radium for Mac OS X to listen, since the Sirius XM Web site is 100 percent garbage, so the stream never connected in either Safari or Firefox) so it’s not really for me, but maybe you want to grab an early Christmas gift?

Haven’t written about Sirius XM for a little while, so here’s a treat: your bill is about to go up. Starting next month, Sirius XM will tack on a $1.98 surcharge (if that’s the word to use) to your bill in order to placate the music industry.

That’s right, the music industry. The Copyright Royalty Board increased the rates that it forces satellite radio—but not terrestrial radio!—to pay. It works out that, because Sirius XM can’t “absorb these increased cost,” it’ll merely be added onto your bill. See, easy!

And let’s not forget that Sirius XM started charging for its online stream a little while ago.

“Good times, good times,” right?

Looks like President Obama wants to see some change in our Cuba policy, and not merely change affecting only Cuban-Americans and their relationship with the country. American telecommunication companies will now be allowed to, among other things, establish satellite links between the two countries and—Opie and Anthony may soon be heard in Havana!

It’s true. In an effort to modernize, if not normalize, relations between the two countries, the Obama Administration will now allows companies to set up fiber optic connections—could widespread Cuban broadband be far behind? Additionally, TV and satellite radio companies would be allowed to operate in the country. CNN Santiago de Cuba edition, Sirius XM en Cuba, etc. Roaming agreements between American and Cuban cellphone companies would also be permitted.

Of course, now it’s up to the Cuban government to allow the American companies to set up shop. It’s just that now there won’t be American law standing in these companies’ way.

Combine all that with the ability to donate consumer telecom equipment—presumably including cellphones, TVs, PSPs, etc.—and you’re looking at quite a change in policy. It’s about time, too.

Photo: Flickr

via Los Angeles Times

Now that nobody on planet Earth is buying cars anymore, Sirius XM has to find a new way to promote itself to would-be buyers. It used to be that buyers of new cars would get a couple free months of Sirius or XM included; but what now? If yesterday’s conference call is any indication, Sirius XM, which was rescued at the ELEVENTH HOUR by Liberty Media last month, will really begin to promote itself to fancy-pants iPhone and iPod touch users. A Sirius XM-developed (remember, that third-party Star Player was killed last week) application will help spread the gospel of Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Oprah and TonsOfSports.

In and of itself, this isn’t new. We’ve known for some time now that Sirius XM had an iPhone application in development, but its importance to the company has never been more clear. With regular, commercial radio floundering, if not already dead (my opinion!), it’s high time Sirius XM start telling all those iPhone-loving folks out there—plenty of y’all, I’m sure—that, “you know what, satellite radio is actually pretty cool, if you don’t mind spending $15 a month. You get lots of commercial-free music, exclusive talk radio (Stern and O&A, etc.) and some fun sports! And being able to listen to that right on your iPhone would be pretty neat, too, don’t you think?”

Obviously their marketing would be a bit punchier, but you get the idea. Sirius XM needs to actively promote itself to the TWITTER GENERATION, as it were.

There’s something wrong with CBS Radio’s press release announcing the launch, complete with silly “countdown,” of 92.3 Now FM in New York City, a contemporary hit radio station that will replace K-Rock on Wednesday, March 11, at 5:00pm. (Contemporary hit radio, in plain English, means garbage pop songs, distinguished by their use of auto-tune and use of lowest-common-denominator song-writing.) CBS Radio Senior Vice-President of Something or Other, Don Bouloukos, is quoted in the release as saying, “Our assets in the country’s No. 1 market include among them the best known brands in the business. From the most listened to news and sports stations in the country, to the classic sounds of WCBS FM and the adult contemporary styling of Fresh 102.7, CBS RADIO offers something for everyone in the market – including young adults who are using the radio to discover today’s most popular music as featured on 92.3 NOW FM.” [Emphasis added, obviously.] And that, friends, is why the radio business, as we know it, is truly doomed. No, Mr. Bouloukos, young people are not turning on their radio to discover new music; they’re certainly not sticking around through the commercials to listen to new music on a radio station. No, sir, that’s what the Internet is for, and that’s why your business has no future.

Some background information is needed here. For only one more day, 92.3 FM in New York City will be known as K-Rock, a typical rock station that you can find in any city in the U.S. If you can think of a rock song from the past 20 years, odds are, the station will play it. Twenty times per day. The latest ratings put the station at 21st place, one spot higher than a gospel station—there’s people who listen to gospel music in New York City?—and right behind a Univision-owned Latin Rhythm station. K-Rock, as a whole, isn’t doing too well. In fact, it’s doing so poorly that CBS Radio decided it was necessary to completely flip formats. Out with the Green Day and in with the Beyoncé! Opie and Anthony, a show I’ve enjoyed for several years now, was let go, according to Opie’s Twitter. It, apparently, doesn’t fit in with the station’s new direction. Fair enough, it’s for CBS Radio to decide if the show is relevant to the demographics it’s now targeting.

So CBS Radio in particular, and commercial radio in general, besieged by scary new technologies—your Imeems, Pandoras, iTunes(es?), YouTube, BitTorrents, iPhones, etc.—decides that rock doesn’t cut it anymore, and that a switch to CHR was in order. (There’s already another CHR station in New York, a fact CBS Radio decided to spin by saying that New Yorkers now, for the first time, have a choice of which frequency they wish to hear that Taylor Swift song. (As if people care what station they’re listening to a song on, provided they’re tuning in at all.) The thinking here, one can only assume, is that radio companies feel that station formats like rock, classic rock and whatever else—radio formats with large back catalogues—don’t work in an iPod world. Why pay a DJ to spin Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the millionth time when a good chunk of your potential audience already has the song on their iPhone (or other music-playing cellphone) or iPod (or other portable media player)? Better to program a music station with NEW! HIT! music. That way there’s less of a chance of your audience having the song on their iPod, and there’s less of a chance of your audience saying, “Good God, again they’re playing [this song]! Time to listen to something else!”

We now turn to Mr. Bouloukos’ comment, that young people—most of you guys are young people, I would guess!—are “using the radio to discover today’s most popular music.” First off, that wording is just wrong. If a song is already popular—remember, 92.3 Now will only only play “hit music”—then the odds are that people have already heard it before; in other words, hit music is already popular! A song becomes popular when a lot of people know it, and enjoy it. If a song is popular, then people aren’t, by definition, “discovering” it! (Amateur Hour at CBS Radio, apparently.) Even giving Mr. Bouloukos the benefit of the doubt, that what he meant to say is that people are using radio to discover new music… well, good luck bro. I’d like to find the last 17-year-old in America who is using commercial radio as his primary source of new music. I mean, it’s not like these kids are using THE INTERNET to find new music, right? MySpace Music, music blogs like Hype Machine, sites like Imeem and YouTube, etc. (Then these kids turn around and buy said music either directly from the band’s Web site, or use iTunes or, yes, download it “from BitTorrent.” (BitTorrent is an Internet protocol; you don’t download things “from it.”)

You wanna know how I “discovered” Buraka Som Sistema, this ridiculous electronic group from Portugal? (Yes, I readily admit that my tastes in music are a little on the unusual side, at least by American standards.) On What.cd, a popular BitTorrent site, I was reading the profile of M.I.A., the girl who sings all those songs in Slumdog Millionaire. There’s a little related artists diagram, and one link leads to Buraka Som Sistem. I grab their latest album and say to myself, “holy smokes this is amazing.” (My favorite song of theirs happens to be “Yah! (The Count and Sinden Remix)”.) These guys are coming to New York in May, so barring some sort of catastrophe, I will be there and I will enjoy every last minute of it.

Never mind that commercial radio in New York City will never play Buraka Som Sistem!

Let’s try another example of how people discover new music in the year 2009. Opie, from the aforementioned Opie and Anthony show, had tweeted—there’s this thing called Twitter, CBS Radio, that I’m sure you’ll try to use before the year is out—a picture of a couple of CDs he had in his car. One of them was MGMT, an indie rock band that I had never heard of till then. Before you know it, hey, I’m now a fan of MGMT. What introduced me to this band? Nope, not crusty old commercial radio, but Twitter, a largely rubbish Web 2.0 site that, for all its faults, lets people talk nonsense rather effectively. One Tweet later, I now have another band to see when they swing by New York City.

CBS Radio, that is how people are “discovering” new music in the year 2009. They’re not listening to the radio, sitting through commercials, waiting for the marble-mouthed DJ to say, “Hey, here’s [Cool New Band].” Yes, we know. We heard about [Cool New Band] two weeks ago via Twitter/Facebook/MySpace Music/whatever. Thanks for trying to remain relevant, though!

Now, I still think radio, as a medium, isn’t dead yet. Plenty of people listen to talk radio, whether it’s of the comedy variety à la Opie and Anthony, of the political variety à la Hannity or Rush, or of the sports variety. (My God does sports radio delve into minutia!) Radio is great for news, too: nothing wrong with listening to the headlines while you’re stuck in traffic on the BQE. But this idea that CBS Radio, and others, cling to, that commercial music radio has a future, that people still seek out commercial radio to listen to new music, is laughably outdated.

Here’s one of those quicke CrunchDeals we like to promote from time to time. This time, satellite radio fan, you can grab the Pioneer XMp3, along with the relevant Home and Vehicle kit, for $239. That’s $100 less than what XM usually wants!

As XM’s lovely e-mail puts it, the two kits are normally $69 when purchased separately, while Amazon has the XMp3 available for $201 (and cheaper if you include rebates). This little sale is for this week only.

Patrice Oneal is the greatest man alive, by the way.

Put away your pitchforks, angry investors, for Sirius XM has been saved by Liberty Media, the company that has a sizable stake in DirecTV. A deal was reached that sees Liberty Media invest (via loans) $530 million in the satellite radio operation, some of which will go straight to paying off that $170ish million in debt the company had until today to come up with. Mel Karmazin stays on as CEO, but Liberty Media gets a boatload of stocks and a few seats on the board of directors.

The deal with Liberty Media, which some had characterized as Sirius XM’s “white knight,” means the satellite radio company doesn’t have to deal with Charles Ergen (the Dish Network guy), who, some had speculated, didn’t exactly see eye to eye with Karmazin; any potential deal between Ergen and Sirius XM placed Karmazin’s future in doubt.

This is probably the best outcome that Sirius XM could have hoped for, the worst of which, obviously, would have been bankruptcy (and, ipso-facto, Karmazin’s possible sacking). That Karmazin managed to secure the loan in this hellish environment should be applauded.

Our long national nightmare is over.

This Sirius XM bankruptcy story is starting to read like some trashy novel. There’s now word that DirecTV is getting involved, with the CEO of parent company Liberty Media, one John C. Malone, offering to bail out the troubled satellite radio company. Some see it as a genuine offer, while others see it merely as a ploy to jack up the price for Malone’s rival at EchoStar (Dish Network), Charles W. Ergen. Wonderful.

So the Times today says that Malone’s Liberty Media is in talks with Sirius XM to help out in some capacity; it’s not clear just year if they’re discussing a complete takeover, or something less dramatic, like helping out to service the company’s debt. (Remember: Sirius XM has until Tuesday to come up with $175 million; another $400 is due in December.) As you might expect, given the shape the world economy is in, it’s quite difficult to find people willing to buy Sirius XM debt.

And this is where it gets silly. Malone (remember, he’s in charge of the parent company of DirecTV) could well be offering to help out Sirius XM merely to make Ergen’s (the head of Dish Network’s parent company) life a little harder. “You wanna buy Sirius XM, you’ll have to put a whole lot more money on the table, jerk, because we’re interested, too!” Of course, since EchoStar already has a good chunk of Sirius XM debt on its books, it has the upper hand in any sort of open bidding/negotiating with Sirius XM. That Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazindoesn’t get along with Ergen—if Ergen “took over,” Karmazin may well have to step aside from the company—shouldn’t be ignored.

Keep in mind, worried subscribers, that it’s not like, if Sirius XM files for Chapter 11 next week, the company automatically closes up shop. Chapter 11 is basically a legal method for the company to, pardon my French, get its act together, financially. Should the company indeed file for Chapter 11, you, the everyday subscriber, aren’t necessarily going to see any difference in your day-to-day use of the service. (I think people just hear the word “bankruptcy” and they freak out.) The fact is, the company has plenty of paying subscribers that any competent executive or shareholder would want to do business with. It’s just that Sirius XM ran into the perfect storm with its debt obligations vis-à-vis capitalism completely falling apart in the last few months.

Hope you aren’t a Sirius XM shareholder. When word broke last night that the company had retained the services of some fancy bankruptcy lawyers—the worst, that bankruptcy could be filed “within days”—fans of the service, naturally, started to freak out. There’s a few more details today that may be worth your time, such as the water cooler talk that this could all be a ploy by CEO Mel Karmazin to get Dish Network to help out just a little bit more.

It’s like this: EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen is looking to take control of Sirius XM. (EchoStar is the parent company of Dish Network.) To that end, he offered to give the ailing company several hundred million dollars of capital and to restructure the company’s debt. As it stands, Sirius XM has a boatload of outstanding debt that needs to be addressed in the coming weeks: the company has till February 17 to come up with $175, or it may be forced into bankruptcy. And since there’s that pesky recession, that means there’s pretty much no credit to be found, anywhere. (Unless you’re Real Madrid, in which case banks will hand over €70 million worth of credit like it’s nothing.) In short, Sirius XM could really use some of Ergen’s money.

The problem here is that Mel Karmazin, Sirius SM’s CEO, doesn’t exactly want to hand over control of the company; it’s his baby.

Then there’s the small problem of bankruptcy, which, according to the WSJ, would expose Sirius XM management to shareholder lawsuits.

Now, yesterday’s threat of bankruptcy could just be Karamazin saying, “Look, we’re in trouble. If Ergen—or anyone—would help us out here we wouldn’t have to go through bankruptcy proceedings.”

This doesn’t look good. The Times is reporting that Sirius XM, home to Opie and Anthony, “has been working with advisers to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing.” Of course, that’s different from OH MY GOD THEY’RE GOING BANKRUPT RIGHT NOW, but it’s not a good sign.

The satrad company has been working with some fancy bankruptcy lawyers, and it’s possible that a Chapter 11 filing could happen in the next few days.

The Times also notes a subplot: this could be a ploy to get EchoStar, which recently bought a boatload of the company’s debt, to make a formal bid for the company.

I imagine we’ll be hearing about this as the night progresses.

Fancy listening to Backspin on your iPhone? Or maybe you’d like to hear the comedy stylings of Christian Jimmy on The Virus? Soon, friends. Soon. Supposedly. On the way to the App Store, the uSirius StarPlayr, an iPhone app that lets you listen to Sirius XM on your iPhone. Fancy that.

The application has been in development for some time, and the word over at Orbitcast is that it will be submitted to Apple for approval by January 31. Considering there’s no “boobs and booty” here, I can’t see the approval process lasting too long. It’s up to Apple.

So now CBS Radio and Pandora will have a little competition. The question now becomes, how long will radio, as a business, be around? (Three months.)

Yes, we’re a little late on this new; I blame the economy, which is a convenient escapegoat for all of life’s problems.

Photo: That guy Chris Pirillo’s Web site

We’ve had confirmation of Sirius XM price hikes for about a week now, but now the company is actively promoting it. Go to either Sirius’ or XM’s Web site and you’ll see a kind note explaining how online streaming will no longer be free. Starting on March 11, 2009, you’ll need to part with $2.99 per month if you want to listen online. You know, because upgrading the online feed to “CD-quality,” whatever that means, costs a bloody fortune.

To be fair to Sirius XM, $3 for online streaming isn’t exactly outrageous; it’s just annoying.

So, if you’re looking to avoid an extra fee, you should “lock in” your current subscription rate.

Also, Louis CK is great.

via Orbitcast

So yeah, that rumored Sirius XM price hike is totally going to happen. Go ahead and call Sirius XM and you’ll get the customer service guy trying to get you to “lock in” your current rates by buying a lifetime subscription. Time to break out the pitchforks.

Right in line with yesterday’s information, online streaming will now cost $2.99 per month (it’s currently free with a subscription), and each extra radio will cost you $2 more per month, to $8.99. Note that the online feed’s quality will jump a bit, to 128k.

The base subscription price remains unchanged. That is, if you have only one radio and don’t listen to the online feed you won’t be affected.

As to whether or not this rate increase violates the agreement that Sirius XM made with the FCC, well, since the base rate wasn’t increased it’s hard to say that it does indeed violate the agreement.

But, really, it’s only $2, $2 that could go a long way to helping Sirius XM get through this wretched economy.

As if satellite radio fans, especially longtime XM ones, didn’t have enough to worry about, there’s a juicy rumor going around right now that suggests that Sirius XM prices are going to increase across the board. Ugh.

The rumor started on the Digital Radio Central message board, from someone claiming to be an employee of Sirius XM’s Activations Department. The alleged hikes:

• Online streaming will no longer be free (unless you’re a lifetime subscriber), instead it’ll be $2.99 for most packages, perhaps as much as $8.99 for the Mostly Music and Family Packs

• Each additional radio tethered to your sub will cost $8.99 a month, up $2 from $6.99 a month

Orbitcast’s own Deepthroats have confirmed price increase, though their numbers vary slightly.

In any event, current subscribers will be able to “lock in” current prices (free online streaming, $6.99 per additional radio).

What a terrific merger, right? Unwanted channel changes (and fan reaction), people losing their jobs on the XM side of things, price raises. This is not what I’m used to.

Sirius XM have finally showed off its first interoperable radio, the MiRGE. It’ll be available this spring for $250, and you’ll be able to subscribe to a new $20 per month plan that gets you “Sirius plus XM Everything” (cool how it’s marketing it as “Sirius plus THAT OTHER COMPANY”). Yes, both services, completely, for $20 per month.

You do have to wonder what the point of such a radio is, though, considering all the channel changes and merges. (Oh, wait, no you don’t: it’s to placate the FCC.) That is to say, with XM Everything + Best of Sirius you’ve pretty much got everything you’d want, except maybe some of the sports channels.

The radio itself doesn’t look to be anything special; nothing about it says 2009 versus, say, 2006, when both companies were still at each other’s throats. You can record up to 60 minutes of programming with it, though. Gee, thanks.

I can’t see too many people plopping down $250 on a satellite radio in this environment. And, really, the only people who’d benefit from it would be new subscribers or folks who need every sports channel ever. Otherwise, hold on to what you’ve got.

Meanwhile, here’s two bonus photos I took from today’s Opie and Anthony show, featuring the nail-biting Guitar Hero showdown between Danny (creator of Secret Show to the Future) and some smug intern named Evan. Evan won, barely.

via Orbitcast

Old school hip-hop is coming back to Sirius XM after having been axed from the lineup late last year. Sirius XM says it’s in response to “overwhelming” fan reaction. The company is listening to us!

Yeah, so starting on January 15 you’ll find Backspin back on your radio dial. (The disco channel, The Strobe, is also coming back, but my guess is that not too many of you are into disco.)

One of the Sirius XM higher-ups said that the company will continue to listen to fans regarding content changes, which is the smart thing to do. Sirius XM is hardly in the position to piss off its subscribers.

The moral of this story is, if Sirius XM has annoyed you in any capacity, complain till your voice is sore.

via Orbitcast

Did Santa Claus give you a Sirius XM Radio yesterday? Boy are you in for a treat if he did, since “Secret Show to the Future” will be re-airing tomorrow night (Saturday, 12/27) at 9pm on XM channel 202 and Sirius channel 197.

You’ll remember that this program recently won our (well, my) Best in Satellite Radio awards. The awards were even mention on 12/17’s Opie & Anthony and Ron & Fez! At the very least an intern on those shows’ staff reads us. Unbelievable.

Briefly, the guys from the Opie & Anthony show, including “Secret Show to the Future” creator Danny, Anthony (the Anthony in Opie & Anthony) and Sam “Foreshadow” Roberts, do live commentary to the movie Back to the Future. It’s sorta like BD-Live or regular DVD commentary, only live and over the radio. Well, it was live in the summer.

So if you’re staying home on Saturday night and don’t mind over-the-top silliness, I highly recommend tuning in. If you ask me, this show alone is worth the $15 monthly Sirius XM fee.

As the only satellite radio fan here at CrunchGear, I feel it’s my duty to review the year that was and point out some of the events that made the medium such a joy. This isn’t a typical “Top 10 Movies” snoozefest, but rather an illustration of what makes satellite radio inherently superior to regular, terrestrial radio (provided you don’t mind a nominal monthly fee).

Please note that this list isn’t to be ranked, but seen as a sum total “these were the best moments of the year, in my [worthless] opinion.”

With that…

1. The Back to the Future Secret Show on XM. If any broadcast showed the power of satellite radio it was this one. Hosted by the Opie and Anthony staff (minus Opie), they narrated the classic movie Back to the Future live on the air, riffing on the abject corruption of Mayor Goldie Wilson, the awkwardness of having your high school-age mother hit on you in the past (even though you’re from the future and know she’s your mother) and just how big a creep the Doc is. I could have done without Sam’s last 100 examples of “foreshadowing,” however.

2. The Ron and Fez election special on XM. The great Ron Bennington, as well as the rest of the Ron and Fez staff, should be applauded for their election coverage this year. Rather than focus on the horse race aspect of the election—oh my God, candidate A is six-tenths of a point behind candidate B in sate Y!—the Ron and Fez team went the other way, telling heartfelt stories about what the first black president meant to them. The many terrible songs about the election, submitted by the show’s listeners, made light of the awful importance of the election.

3. Coldplay Nation on Sirius. Please note that this is a catch-all selection. That is, whenever any band “takes over” a channel it’s worth listening to (provided you like the band). I merely picked Coldplay because they were everywhere this year. Their songs were in iTunes commercials, the BBC used “Life in Technicolor” for its Olympic coverage, etc. (Though the New York Times went out of its way to hate on the band.) When was the last time your local rock station (“the real home of rock and roll,” no doubt) has done anything like this, letting bands run the station?

4. The Winter Music Conference on Sirius and XM. Yes, I’m biased toward electronic music, but Sirius really goes out of its way to make this festival seem special on its airwaves. (Or, about as special as it can feel when you’re 1,000 miles away from Miami.) For that one week in March all you need is Area (called Area 33 back then) or BPM. Lots of fun.

5. The merger, shared content, the firings and the future. The dumb merger between XM and Sirius finally went down this year, and it wasn’t until the fall the people started seeing Howard Stern on their XM radios and O&A and Ron and Fez on their Sirius units. The shared content between the two services hasn’t been well received by everyone, but think of all of the people made redundant by the merger. (Not that it matters: look at Sirius XM’s stock price.) The question now becomes wether or not Mel can find the money to keep the service running, so that we can look forward to the Back to the Future Part 2 Secret Show next year.

XM has this cute little radio+car kit bundle on sale today for $100 less than you’d usually pay. You get the XMp3 and the standard car kit (you need an aux input in your car, or you’ll have to buy the cassette adapter, too). for the low, low price of $249.99.

Here’s hoping that Sirius XM show off new radios next month at CES. That’s one of the things I’ll be personally interested in investigating.

Sirius’ Howard Stern made a strange comment yesterday that’s causing people to freak out, speculating wildly till they pass out.

Discussing his possible plans vis-à-vis [satellite] radio, Stern said, “This is my sawn song.” Now, what he was actually referring to was his aversion to returning to terrestrial (“regular”) radio, but it does raise a broader issue. That is, what’s to happen to satellite radio when he quits? It’s not like he needs the money at this point, so his continued presence (such as it is, what with his frequent days off) is more to do with him keeping busy than it is earning a paycheck.

So let’s say he leaves. It removes more than a few dollars from the Sirius payroll, yes, but it also puts Sirius in a strange, “So, you don’t have Howard anymore? Hmm…” position. The last thing Sirius needs is more uncertainty thrust upon it; you know the company is closely watching what happens to the auto makers since so many of its subscriptions come from deals it has with them. Because once a big name like that leaves, you know all those analyst types on Wall Street will be all, “PROBLEMS AT SIRIUS?”

But, who knows? Just trying to get a conversation started.