('''XM''') is a
Satellite Radio (
DARS ) service in the
United States and
Canada . XM provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to premium
Cable Television . Its service includes 69 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional traffic and weather channels and 23 play-by-play sports channels. XM channels are identified by
Arbitron with the label "XM" (e.g. "XM175", "XM4", "XM32"). Meanwhile, AOL Radio, a division of
America Online 's media sector, offers select XM Satellite Radio channels streamed live through
Winamp , AOL Instant Messenger Triton, and AOL Radio, free of charge.
XM was founded in
1992 as .
XM-capable receivers cost US$30 – US$300. If opting for the month-to-month plan, service fees are US$12.95 for the first receiver, and US$6.99 each for up to four additional receivers on the same account. Subscribers may opt to purchase one-, two-, three-, four-, or five-year packages, in which the average monthly cost would be under US$10.00 per month. XM Satellite Radio produces the majority of its channels, as well as a few others that are not available via satellite, available on the Internet. The Internet-only subscription fee is US$7.99 per month; those with an active satellite subscription do not need to pay an additional charge.
XM is currently the only satellite radio service to offer true mobile services, utilizing the built in antenna in its
MyFi to transmit a live satellite signal to
IPod -sized battery operated devices.
XM also provides data services such as weather information for pilots and weather spotters through its
XM WX Satellite Weather Datacasting service, in addition to real-time weather and traffic updates aired every two minutes for major metropolitan areas on some of XM's audio channels.
DirecTV now gives listeners as part of its service the music and talk channels of XM, but not the news or traffic channels.
XM also offers music downloads though XM+Napster. This service is being integrated with XM Online and the new XM receivers, Inno & Helix.
In January 2006,
JetBlue Airways started carrying XM Radio on their aircraft.
United Airlines will start carrying prerecorded XM content starting in March 2006.
, near the
New York Avenue Metro Station .]]
XM provides digital programming directly from three satellites in
Geostationary Orbit above the equator. XM-1 ("Roll") and XM-2 ("Rock") are co-located at 115 degrees west
Longitude and XM-3 ("Rhythm") is located 85 degrees west longitude in addition to a network of ground-based repeaters. The combination of three satellites and a ground-based repeater network is designed to provide gap-free coverage anywhere within the continental U.S. Unfortunately, XM-1 and XM-2 are suffering from a generic design fault on the
Boeing 702 series of satellites, which means that their lifetimes will be shortened to approximately six years (instead of the design goal of 15 years). To compensate for this flaw, XM-3 was launched earlier than anticipated and moved into XM-1's previous location. XM-1 was then moved over next to XM-2, where each satellite operates only one transponder to conserve energy.
In American and Canadian metropolitan areas, XM and its Canadian Licensee known as
Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR), own and operate a network of approximately 900 terrestrial
Repeater stations, meant to compensate for satellite signal blockage by buildings, tunnels, and bridges. In the
United States XM owns and operates approximately 800 repeater sites covering 60 markets; in
Canada CSR is installing approximately 80 to 100 repeaters that will be owned and operated by CSR in the 16 largest Canadian cities. The actual number of repeater sites varies as the signal is regularly tested and monitored for optimal performance. The actual number of sites in the United States has dropped from the original 1,000 installed when the service first launched in
2001 . The repeaters transmit in the same frequency band as the satellites. A typical city contains 20 or more terrestrial stations. Typically the receiver owner is unaware when a terrestrial station is being used, unless he or she checks antenna information from the receiver being used.
The XM signal uses 12.5 MHz of the Corporation for use with XM-enabled
GM vehicles, regardless of whether their owners are XM subscribers. American Honda also retains the right to some of the company's bandwidth to transmit coded traffic information directly to navigation systems using
TMC technology.
Audio channels on XM are digitally compressed using the
AacPlus codec from Coding Technologies for most channels, and the
AMBE codec from Digital Voice Systems for some voice channels. Due to bandwidth restrictions and a large channel load, the maximum bitrate XM broadcast from its satellite per music channel is limited to 64kbps.
XM channels
XM Pops and
Fine Tuning are broadcast in
5.1 Surround Sound audio quality. The technology, titled
XM HD Surround , is a partnership between XM and
Neural Audio Corporation which provides content with six discrete channels of digital full fidelity audio powered by Neural Audio technology.
XM Live also broadcasts in this format for select concerts and studio performances. XM manufacturing partners such as
Denon ,
Onkyo ,
Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. , and
Yamaha have introduced home audio systems capable of playing XM HD Surround powered by Neural Audio.
The company's May s with GM, American Honda, the chairman, and the CEO. Four additional directors are investors, and two are not affiliated with any significant stockholders.
At that time, GM owned 8.6% of the Class A
Common Stock (a voting percentage of less than 1%) and Honda owned 13% (with a voting percentage of 3.6%).
Unless they unaminously agree otherwise, control of the company remains with the preferred shareholder and noteholders of the company, including Hughes Electronics, GM, Honda, and several private investment groups.
As part of terrestrial radio giant , XM21
KISS , XM22
Mix , XM24
Sunny , and the relaunch of
WSIX on XM161 - the existing talk channel programming (XM165
Ask! , XM166
America Right , XM152
Extreme XM , XM142
Fox Sports Radio , XM173
WLW ) and new regional based talk channels - all of which will begin airing commercials. The music channel advertising is expected to be limited to the 5-6 minute per hour maximum that was in place prior to XM taking its music channels commercial-free in 2004.
Seen as a blow to XM's 100% commercial-free music channel status, XM Executive Vice President of Programming . On
April 17 ,
2006 , XM launched 10 new music channels. Some of these include
XM Liquid Metal , ch 42; XM Hit List, ch 30; and Flight 26, ch 26. Other channels are expected to be in the genres of country, pop/hits, R&B, and latin. In response,
Sirius has displayed that they are the only satellite radio provider that is 100% commercial free with music. Both
XM and
Sirius air commercials currently on their news, talk, and sports channels.
The Clear Channel forward sales agreement with
Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc is set to expire in 2008, at which time Clear Channel is expected to deliver to Bear Stearns over 8.3 million shares in XM — which is their original investment — however Clear Channel withholds the right to settle with cash. If Clear Channel settles with shares, then it would be expected at that time that Clear Channels' Operational Assistance Agreement with XM would terminate, along with any and all programming provided by Clear Channel.
See Also: XM Radio Canada
In November
2004 ,
Canadian Satellite Radio filed an application with the
Canadian Radio-television And Telecommunications Commission to bring the XM service to
Canada . Along with
Sirius Canada and
CHUM Subscription Radio Canada , CSR was one of three applications for national
Subscription Radio services submitted to the CRTC.
On
June 16 ,
2005 , the CRTC approved all three applications. The decisions were appealed to the Canadian federal Cabinet by a number of broadcasting, labour, and arts and culture organizations, including the
Friends Of Canadian Broadcasting ,
CHUM Limited , and the
National Campus And Community Radio Association . The groups objected to the satellite radio applicants' approach to and reduced levels of
Canadian Content and French-language programming, along with the exclusion of Canadian non-commercial broadcasting. After a lengthy debate, Cabinet rejected the appeals on
September 9 ,
2005 .
XM's Canadian channels appeared on US receivers on
November 17 ,
2005 . On
November 29 ,
2005 , XM Canada officially launched.
In alphabetical order:
- OnXm XM Radio news site.
- Orbitcast popular Satellite Radio blog.
- XM411 XM fansite (with over 18,739 members) plus store.
- XMFan XM fansite (with over 38,294 members) plus store.
- WhatsOnMyXM.com An XM programming community with show programming grid, RSS feeds and shows wiki.
- T.O. Talk (www.totalk.ca) , the Toronto talk radio forum, hosts an XM discussion area.
