After spending millions on what is arguably the strongest lineup in audio history, why would the recently merged Sirius XM not beam its shows to iPhones, which seem built exactly for that purpose (and a million others)?
The release last week of a dedicated iPhone app for pulling down Sirius XM channels should have answered that question. But several of the most popular shows on the network have been left out of the iPhone app — Howard Stern, MLB games, Nascar races and the NFL. So, Sirius XM’s commitment to streaming methods that don’t leverage its own satellites has been called into question by subscribers. They’ve been wondering on message boards, Twitter and elsewhere why they can’t get these channels on their phones.
The problem? For whatever reason, Sirius XM’s contracts with these big-ticket broadcasting powerhouses doesn’t include the right to stream to phones.
“It was a rights thing — a contractual rights thing,” explained Howard Stern yesterday on his show, which could not be heard by iPhone app listeners. “It was a rights issue and a whole entanglement thing. So, we’re not on it. Maybe one day we will be.”
Sirius XM’s site is no more helpful. “Sirius and XM offer all of the channels for which we have mobile performance rights,” it reads. “For that reason, certain channels which may be available on your satellite radio or online radio service may not be available on a mobile device like the iPhone.”
If you have any type of account with Sirius XM — including the $13-per-month, internet-only option that doesn’t require Sirius XM hardware — the iPhone app is free. It gives you access to over 120 channels, including the ones built around Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, the Grateful Dead and other luminaries, as well as a number of genre-based channels. Nonsubscribers can to listen for up to seven days before deciding whether to commit to at least $13 per month to the service. There is no free or price-reduced, ad-supported version.
Earlier this year, Howard Stern fans were overjoyed to hear that an app called Starplayr would soon stream Stern’s show to their iPhones, but Apple refused to approve that app. Nor did it approve uSirius or uXM, which let Sirius and XM subscribers with accounts in good standing listen on jailbroken iPhones. The developers behind these programs had planned to work together, before ceasing operations. Later, one wrote, “if anyone is looking for an iPhone developer to work on a project unrelated to satellite radio” (his emphasis), they should get in touch. It doesn’t appear any further work will be done on those projects.
Observations about the first, officially licensed way to listen to “satellite” radio on an unhacked iPhone or iPod Touch:
* Sirius XM streams in variable bit rate to the iPhone or iPod Touch at speeds of up to 128 Kbps, depending on your connection.
* There’s no caching of channels, meaning that dropouts occur on subways, highways, planes and countless other places you might want to listen to music. In this area, Slacker’s channel-caching approach is superior.
* However, if you pause the live stream, it will resume from a spot a few seconds before you hit the pause button (so in that sense, anyway, there is some caching).
* This app doesn’t perform reliably on AT&T’s Edge network, but that’s consistent with what we’ve seen from other streaming apps, so no surprise there. Performance over 3G and WiFi is much better.
* This being a Sirius XM app, with professionally programmed channels, we also weren’t surprised by the complete lack of channel customization.
* You can pick favorite songs or tag them for later purchase, but can’t pick favorite channels, meaning that you have to navigate to your favorites each time you listen. At least, categorized browsing makes this fairly painless.
* The app lets you see what songs are playing on music channels before you select them. In this regard, anyway, the iPhone version outperforms some of Sirius XM’s own hardware.
* The app includes phone numbers for its call-in shows, but you can’t click on a number in order to call it. Hey Sirius XM, remember: The iPhone is a phone, too.
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