Sirius to start broadcasting news and weather to local markets

[Chris Blount]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. said Friday it will begin broadcasting local traffic and weather information for Los Angeles and New York starting Sunday, a move likely to renew calls by traditional broadcasters to regulate the satellite radio industry.

"Over the next 30 days, we will move (this service) out in the top 20 markets," Joe Clayton, Sirius's chief executive officer, said at the Reuters Technology, Media and Telecommunications Summit in New York.

Full Story From Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/02/27/rtr1279177.html)

[Pete K.]

On the whole this is great news for both Sirius and XM subscribers. XM will offer
traffic and weather info starting Monday. My only question about the Sirius offering
stems from this quote:

"Clayton said the new service, which will be provided through Westwood One's SmartRoute Systems, will broadcast on 10 channels on Sirius, with each channel serving two markets."

Will listeners appreciate having to sit through one city's traffic and weather together
to hear their own?

[homeskillet]

Maybe one is at the top of the hour, the other the bottom? Or Alternate time slots?

[Richard King]

I suspect, and hope, that they will be placed on the news/talk channels where there are already breaks in the programming. Sirius places their own promos in some of these slots currently. These promos can be replaced with the weather/traffic reports with no harm done. I am now totally hooked on my Sirius system and have been selling them to nearly anyone who sees it in my car as I drive around. :D

[timf]

It looks to me like Sirius didn't pick the true top 20 markets, but rather just copied the exact same list XM is offering. XM is limited by their supplier TrafficPulse, which only offers the service in a limited number of cities. WestwoodOne offers the broadcasts for nearly 100 markets, but Sirius is only going to broadcast those cities that XM has. While this covers Detroit, it does not include Denver which I feel is a bigger market than some of the cities on the list.