New York – SiriusXM launched its first tuner compatible with SiriusXM 2.0 service through its own online store and through select Best Buy stores.
The satellite-radio broadcaster, however, promises to expand distribution to 2,500 retail locations nationwide by this holiday shopping season. The locations include Best Buy and other retailers. Audiovox begins this week to ship the new tuner to retailers, the company told TWICE.
The new tuner is the $139-suggested
Edge, a Dock & Play radio capable of receiving 22 additional channels,
including an expanded selection of Hispanic-oriented channels. Additional programming and expanded listener capabilities
will be announced in the coming months, the company added.
The
additional channels are included in the company’s existing basic $12.95/month
plan.
The new
programming is also available today through the company’s smartphone apps and
Internet-streaming service. This represents the first phase of the SiriusXM 2.0
rollout, which the company said would include additional hardware, audio and
data services. The service uses modulation and compression techniques to
effectively deliver 25 percent more bandwidth capacity without reducing the
broadcast quality of existing channels, the company claimed.
The
Edge tuner can be docked with a car stereo system via an included car kit, amd
it can be docked with a home stereo system via an optional home-docking kit.
It’s also compatible with a docking speaker system available from the company.
The car
docking kit includes magnet-mount antenna and dock that turns a vehicle’s
electrical wiring into an antenna that re-transmits the satellite programs to a
vehicle’s FM tuner. Channels are broadcast over the company’s XM satellites.
The Edge features ability to
pause, rewind and replay up to 30 minutes of live satellite radio. It also displays
artist name, song title and channel information on a large color graphic
display. It also browses other channels while playing back a channel, stores up
to 10 channels in presets and provides parental-control channel lockout. A
one-touch jumping feature lets users jump to the traffic and weather channel
for a particular city and jump back to a previously listened station.
The expanded
channel lineup includes more commercial-free music offerings, additional comedy
channels, an addition to live sports talk programming and SiriusXM Latino. The
latter is a new suite of channels featuring commercial-free music as well as programming
from providers of Spanish-language sports, news, talk and entertainment.
New channels include
Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame Radio
,
,
,
,
,
and
.
Four comedy channels go to seven with the
addition of
,
and
.
In
sports talk and live-play-by-play programming, the company previously
offered NFL, MLB, NHL, PGA Tour, NASCAR
and college sports. The new lineup adds to that with
.
In
Latino channels, the company added 10 commercial-free music channels and
, a
news and talk channel.
One way
to get all SiriusXM channels is to subscribe to a $199/year All Access plan,
which delivers all channels via satellite, Internet-streaming channels
available to PCs and select home audio products, and the ability to stream
select SiriusXM channels through smartphones and other mobile devices.
SiriusXM previously said it planned an extra-cost
Latino-channel subscription tier in 2.0 service, but the company’s announcement
made no mention of that in the initial 2.0 launch.
