By Brian “Newman” Rayl
A few days ago, my partner Dennis “Cos” Costa and I wrote an article speculating on the possibilities of a Slacker/Pandora type application for Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) and how it would benefit the company to create such a service or buy out one of the existing services. One of the key issues that we determined was in this paragraph:
“We also both agreed that Slacker and Pandora are feature rich with a very nice “jukebox” feel to it, allowing you to customize your very own personal radio stations, while providing users with some music discovery advantages at the same time. You can base your station on a certain group or a certain theme, as well as creating a ”hate songs” list so that they never play again. The personalization of these services is quite nice. Obviously you cannot do the this with Sirius XM, leaving the user only able to pick a genre of music, but not the artist.”
Yesterday TWX, a member of our forums, brought to our attention a patent that was filed back on June 19th, 2008 and owned by XM Satellite Radio. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the basis of this patent is as follows:
“The present invention relates to a system and method for providing a broadcast radio service listener with the ability to generate a personalized radio channel play-list on a radio receiver from broadcast content as it is received. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for buffering content from a set of channels selected from among the broadcast channels of a source stream(s) as they are received, and for generating a playback stream using the buffered content that provides a multichannel listening experience to the user with preview, reverse, fast forward and other navigation functions for the buffered content.”
– United States Patent Application #20090320075
In fact, Slacker, Pandora, and Last.fm are specifically referenced within the filing as examples of what the purpose of the patent is geared towards. The filing states that “on-line personalized radio services [have] demonstrated its appeal to music fans as evidenced by the continued growth of personalized radio service providers such as Pandora, LastFM and Slacker. These providers assemble personalized play-lists for users by accessing a large music library where each song has a meta-data field containing ratings on multiple stylistic parameters.” The patent filing goes on to say that “a need exists for a live satellite radio offering with low cost hardware that does not require a large local song database to be built over time at a satellite receiver by recording content matches received over-the-air or via other broadcast method.”
Enter Satellite Radio 2.0. During the second quarter 2010 Sirius XM conference call, Mel Karmazin introduced the Satellite Radio 2.0 concept and since then it has become the buzz word around the Sirius XM community. When introducing the Satellite Radio 2.0 concept, Mel Karmazin stated:
“Our next generation of satellite radios are expected to offer significantly more choices for the consumer and contain functionality that does not exist today in our radios.”
– Mel Karmazin
Certainly these are functions and options that are not available today. The great part about this patent, as far as I can tell, is that it absolutely does not change anything about the satellites and would use very little if any additional bandwidth. This is strictly a hardware/software patent, as the abilities are built into the radio itself. The patent utilizes multiplexing techniques which would allow for users to customize their own channels using a “like” or “dislike” style button. The program uses a set of characteristics that are programed in as part of the song, much like the title and artist information is a part of the song now. Pandora calls this the “Music Genome Project” and describes it like this:
“Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song – everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records — it’s about what each individual song sounds like.”
– Pandora
Utilizing something very similar, Sirius XM could program in many of the similar features within the Music Genome Project into their Satellite Radio 2.0 software. The software would then analyze each song that was streaming through the Sirius XM spectrum, and then capture specific songs that met the listener’s preferences. The software could then cache that live content onto a new storage chip on the radio for playback at later times. This caching could happen at any time that the radio was active, and not just while the user was listening to their personally designed channel. All the while, the program inserts new content into the playlist that may potentially match the listener’s preferences and allows for music discovery over every single one of Sirius XM’s channels. A key differentiator mentioned in the patent is that it would not be used solely for music discovery, but overall content discovery spanning the depths of news, sports, talk, and comedy programming as well. Additionally, it appears that users may be able to actually save their favorite songs for instant playback at any time, “…[F]urther comprising providing a user with a user control input to select and store one of the audio segments in the play-list to a favorite song file in a non-volatile memory.”
Yet another very interesting aspect of this patent was found in the following statement:
“21. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein receiving at least one broadcast stream comprises receiving at least one other stream selected from the group consisting of a satellite radio broadcast stream, a high speed high definition (HD) radio stream, a real-time HD radio stream, a WiFi stream, and wireless stream, the other stream comprising at least one audio program channel having audio segments, and wherein selecting a set of channels comprising an audio program channel from the other stream.”
– United States Patent Application #20090320075
It seems that Sirius XM may be not just wanting to pull content from Sirius XM, but also possibly from HD Radio, WiFi, Wireless, and possibly terrestrial radio as well. If it streams over the radio you are listening to, it could potentially capture it on your personalized Sirius XM stream. And last but certainly not least, there is wording in the patent that would allow for tiered services and possibly advertising supported streams as well.
If this patent is even remotely related to Satellite Radio 2.0, then to steal a tag line from Demian Russian, Editor and Chief of Satellite Radio Playground, this could be a game changer for Sirius XM.
Disclosure: Long SIRI
Contact the Author: Newman@SatelliteRadioPlayground.com
Lots of spec. I will be happy with more channels so they can say to the FCC we are going to offer more premium priced tiers. The more channels the better. Plus touch screen plug and plays would be nice for the car.
I will reread later. Heading to the beach.
This is about a year away.
I think we’ll see this in about 18 weeks at CES.
Awesome potential. Thanks for laying it out here. Pandora-type service seems like a no-brainer to me. I think it would definitely boost revenues on the retail line.
TWX thanks again for bringing this to our attention.
No prob. Was hoping you might run with it. Great article!
After reading through some of the patent it looks very much like they are trying to figure out a way to combine channels for an individual. Maybe even 5 or 6 of them.
If I like First Wave and Alt Nation hypothetically I should be able to listen to songs on each on one channel instead of two. And if certain artists are played on different channels you should be able to pull those songs into your own channel too.
Nice but certainly not earth shattering. My preference would be to add more content specific channels. The more the better.
Muscle, you want more channels? This is exactly the way to do it. You get your OWN channel, basically programmed BY YOU. I get my own, Demian gets his own, and Cos gets his own.
If this patent does what I read it to do, Sirius XM would have just added millions of channels without using any additional bandwidth.
Welcome to more content specific channels.
Nah, it looks to me like it is just combining what is already on there into personalized channels. That’s not creating new content. Thats just rearranging it for different users.
I prefer new unique content.
I sure hope they don’t try to pass this off to the FCC as “new” channels for higher pricing. To me rearranging content for users is not creating new content specific channels.
I would prefer they go the cable route and add a shopping channel, a game show channel, a food network etc. Just as examples. I would like to see many new genre specific music channels as well. Punk, Boombox Easy Listening etc as well.
That’s truly adding more content.
The personalization aspect could be nice but I am much more interested in satellite radio adding more content. Content is King.
Wow Muscle I am surprised that you do not see your being able to scan all channels for your favorite stuff, while listening to your favorite stuff, as something new and unique to SXM. Remember SXM is scanning live content, on many channels, to make sure you don’t lose anything that might excite you…or you just have to have, and then saving that information for “just you” later on….
This is definitely cool… and a game changer………… no one else has live content, monitored for your on-demand later, listening pleasure, than Sirius XM would have with this….
My opinion Cos – People pay for content. I don’t think people pay for personalization.
Cable doesn’t personalize but people pay $100 a month for the unique content. Pandora personalizes with no unique content and people get it for free.
Personalization is nice. Content is where the money is in media. I like the cable model that Sirius seems to have moved to radio.
I hope they continue to add new content.
It’s called diversity.
Oh, by the way, nice article. Thanks.
Cable also is the most successful media business ever invented and in the past decade has moved from analog to digital with most people now getting hundreds of channels. And the monthly sub rates have increased with the channel offerings. It has produced billions upon billions of cash flow.
It is my hope that Sirius can follow this path and increase channel offerings by providing new unique content.
In contrast internet radio with its personalization popularity hasn’t proven itself as a business since its birth in 1994.
Thinking it over Cable does offer video on demand now but I really haven’t studied the cash flow numbers compared to its normal subscription service. I am sure the VOD numbers pale in comparison but it is a nice add-on. I believe the more significant impact for cable’s transition to digital(and Sat TV as well) was the addition of new channels with unique content.
I never thought I would agree with you…but I agree with you on this issue. Content is KING…personalization is not going to attract new subs….content WILL.
I believe the personalization aspect will add subs. It will appeal the the young, who have disposable income. Isn’t that what we want to do? Appeal to the masses? We want people to say “Why DON’T you have satellite radio”, it’s fantastic!!! Cost-benefit analysis……
Couple of points. Mel said on the earnings call – more channels and more functionality.
There is no reason they can’t add more unique content channels and add more personalization as well.
I think a hidden point here is that from what it seems from Newman’s post, and from Mel mentioning about this getting into OEMs, that this very well may be working on the personalization on the sat side instead of the internet side. Thus avoiding those insane internet royalties Pandora pays with their personalized offering.
Also when you look at cable video on demand (and I will always say cable is the business to imitate because they are most successful and internet radio isn’t successful as a business at all), Cable offers a ton of new unique content on their on demand service. It’s not only repurposing content that is already offered to the basic subsciber. They offer a tremendous array of new movies on demand as an example.
Nobody can get around the point that content is king. That is why adding Howard to the internet/mobile side is so important in my opinion. It differentiates Sirius from Pandora with tremendous unique content. People pay for content.
Personally, I’d like Sirius to operate just like Tivo or DVR–let a user record and playback future events, or certain shows. And why isn’t there a channel that acts as a guide? You never know if you’re missing something good on another channel.
Add songs to your playlist from your car as it plays, or login to Sirius.com from you home or work computer and pick songs of interests create a customized play list which will automatically sync up with your car rx when it turns on. Add in features like TiVo that recommend songs you might like add that to your playlist.
Add in these features as well to the Sirius portable media player. Ability to skip songs….
What about an advertisement ticker during playback to lower cost and generate extra revenue.