Online Encyclopedia
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio (DARS) service in the United States that provides 65 streams of music and 55 streams of sports, news and entertainment. The streams are broadcast from three satellites in an Elliptical Geosynchronous Orbit above North America.
Sirius is based in New York, NY and is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the stock symbol "SIRI." Its business model is to provide pay-for-service radio, free of commercials, analogous to the business model for cable television. Sirius competes with XM Satellite Radio.
Sirius' spacecraft Sirius 1 through Sirius 4 were manufactured by Space Systems/Loral. The first three of the series were orbited in 2000 by Proton-K Block-DM3 launch vehicles. Sirius 4 is a ground spare, in storage at SS/Loral's facility in Palo Alto, California.
Sirius was previously known as CD Radio. The dog in the Sirius logo is unofficially named "Mongo."
Sirius recently announced a partnership with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with the intent of introducing satellite radio service to Canada.
On October 6, 2004 Sirius announced that it signed a 5 year/$100 million dollar agreement with shock jock Howard Stern to move to his radio show to Sirius starting on January 1, 2006. Much to the shagrin of his current employer Infinity Broadcasting. It has been widely reported that over the years Stern was very dissatisfied with terrestrial radio primarily because the FCC regulates what he can and cannot say on the air unlike satellite radio which is not currently regulated by the FCC because in order to receive satellite radio you must own a satellite radio receiver and subscribe to a satellite radio provider such as Sirius or XM Radio.