Sirius Satellite Television?
We’ve been to the back seat to watch TV, but the antenna was a little on the big side. With a few modifications, Sirius Satellite Radio can send TV to their subscribers (probably for an extra fee). They’ve been talking about this for a while, and we heard Bell Labs was working on something for them. Some think TV in cars is dangerous. Skyreport reports on CEO Mel Karmazin’s revelation at the Reuters Media Summit:
"We have three content deals that are very close to being finalized. I don’t know if they will be done by CES, but that is what we are shooting for," he said. "We will have video in the rear seat of the car up and running."
While the comments aren’t completely new – the company said in 2004 it would offer video by mid-2005, Oppenheimer’s Thomas Eagan said they are "intriguing" because Sirius could cost-effectively improve its financial and operational wellbeing with a video service.
Sirius could launch a video service with its existing satellite and repeater infrastructure without reducing its audio content, the analyst said, but consumers would need new or different handsets/in-car receivers to get the signal. Eagan said the video product would consist of three or more children’s channels (i.e. Nickelodeon, Disney and HBO Family) with a DVR downloading service sometime down the line.
"We don’t expect significant difficulties integrating a video service into OEM assembly as many of Sirius’ auto partners, such as Ford and Chrysler are already assembling SUVs with drop down LCD screens," Eagan said. "The size of the video market is clearly smaller than the audio market (and) without significant costs we expect the higher OEM conversion rate and higher ARPU would be accretive."
Watch this Reuters clip of the Karmazin interview. I found it interesting.
