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American Morning
New Radio Service Uses Satellites for Nationwide Coverage
Aired July 24, 2001 - 11:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: You've heard of AM and FM radio. Well now, say hello to XM radio.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a new satellite radio system that will beam digital tunes into your home and your car. It starts in September. It's commercial free, but not free of charge.
NELSON: CNN interactive correspondent Allison Tom has a demonstration live in New York. Hi, Allison.
ALLISON TOM, CNN INTERACTIVE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, guys, we are here in New York. It's a little bit hot out, but we are listening to some new tunes. There's about 100 different channels available. And as you mentioned earlier, it will debut in September for consumers to use.
All told, it's going to be about $300 for the unit. It will cost also about $9.99 a month for the service. And joining me now is Hugh Panero. he is the CEO and founder -- the president, I should say, of XM Radio, and welcome to you.
HUGH PANERO, PRES. & CEO, XM RADIO: Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
TOM: Tell me briefly, what exactly is satellite radio?
PANERO: Well, satellite radio is the next generation, what we call radio to the power of x. What we're going to do is do to radio what DBS and cable television did to the TV industry, providing lots more choices. We have 100 channels, 71 music, 30 commercial-free, and 29 news talk, sports and entertainment channel. And what you're looking at right here is an XM radio that can get all of our 100 channels. That's a '60s channel you are listening to right now. Turn that up. You can change with our presets to just another channel. As we go through, this is a real jazz channel.
TOM: It really gives you a wide variety of music tastes as well as news, sports, talk radio as well, right?
PANERO: Absolutely. Again, we want to do the same for radio what cable TV and DBS has done for that industry. The service, again, costs $9.99 a month. It's 100 channels, and this is a radio that is manufactured by Pioneer. In order to get the service, you just need a -- new AM/FM room. You still get your AM/FM. You need a small antenna that goes on the roof of your call.
TOM: And just to clarify, let me interrupt you real quick. Some of these are going to be installed already in cars in 2002 models and some of the GMs and others.
PANERO: Absolutely. GM is coming out with them in their Cadillac models later this year and expanding it to others, and then we are going to be available in all the leading consumer electronics retailers in the United States: Circuit City, Best Buy, Radio Shack, selling these devices and also, another device that you can adapt to your existing radio and that allows to you use your sound system in your car that you have right now.
TOM: So there's three options: One, it will be installed in the car; two, you can use your existing radio and upgrade it, and then the other one is an entire new set.
PANERO: There's an exciting new unit. This is called the Sony Plug-and-Play device, which sits on your dashboard and can be used in both the car and the home. It can be removed from the slot. It connects into your existing radio through the cassette deck slot on your radio and you can obviously have a similar set-up at home and slide this in and connect it up to the cassette slot in your stereo at home.
TOM: What about coverage? I think that's the most important thing. A lot of people are wondering are we going to get coast-to- coast coverage or will there be drop-out areas?
PANERO: We're going to get coast-to-coast coverage. We have launched our two satellites, Rock and Roll. They're the highest- powered satellites in orbit today. They basically both cover the continental United States and we have a repeater network that will provide coverage in dense areas where you have tall buildings.
TOM: OK, great. Thank you very much, and that's it here. We're going to listen to some more tunes that are coming up here. And you can have your choice, one other thing to add too is that some of the unsigned artists can actually be listened on this radio, so it gives you some interesting choices and basically for a lot of music lovers.
Back to you in Atlanta.
NELSON: All right, thank you, CNN's Allison Tom live in New York.
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