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Sirius Satellite Radio SIRI is one of two satellite radio services operating
in the United States and Canada, along with XM Satellite Radio.
Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and
Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently
provides 69 streams (channels) of music and 65 streams of sports, news and
entertainment to listeners. Music streams on Sirius carry a wide variety of
genres, broadcasting 24 hours daily, commercial-free. A subset of Sirius
music channels is included as part of the Dish Network satellite television
service.
 
With most Sirius-enabled radios, the user can see the artist and song
information on display while listening to the stream. The streams are
broadcast from three satellites in a tundra orbit above North America.
 
Its business model is to provide pay-for-service radio, analogous to the
business model for premium cable television, in which music channels are
free of commercials. Talk channels such as Howard 100 and 101 do have
regular commercials. Subscriptions are prepaid and range in price from
US$12.95 monthly (US$6.99 for each additional receiver) to US$499.99 for
lifetime subscription. There is a US$15 activation fee for every radio
activated. Sirius announced it had achieved its first positive cash flow
quarter for the period ending December 2006.
 
Sirius was founded as Satellite CD Radio, Inc., which it was known by until
the change to its current designation on November 18, 1999. The name is
derived from Sirius, sometimes referred to as the Dog Star, the brightest
star in the night-time sky, and was developed by the company's founder David
Margolese, and its Marketing Chief Ira Bahr The dog in the Sirius logo is
unofficially named "Mongo", a name garnered from the debut of Sirius
Satellite Radio’s sponsorship on Casey Atwood’s and later Jimmy Spencer’s
NASCAR entry, when the announcing cast voted on names. "Mongo" later became
NASCAR driver Spencer’s nickname with the NASCAR Broadcasters (mainly
Darrell Waltrip) in the following races.
 
On October 16, 2006 Sirius announced that it would be launching Sirius
Internet Radio with 78 of its 135 channels being available worldwide on the
internet to any of its subscribers with a valid user name and password.

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