SiriusXM debuted a revamped model of its app on Wednesday, designed to combine the corporate’s three enterprise: its flagship satellite tv for pc service SiriusXM, the music streamer Pandora, and its rising community of podcasts. The app will launch on cellular on December 14th, then begin coming to automobiles subsequent yr.
As youthful audiences have moved away from conventional and satellite tv for pc radio, SiriusXM has labored to construct up its choices past its flagship service. The firm acquired Pandora and Stitcher over the previous 5 years, but it surely largely stored them as distinct entities. The new app represents essentially the most vital try SiriusXM has made in integrating its completely different choices.
“We need you to discover and pay attention to the content material, whether or not it’s dwell, on demand, or podcast,” SiriusXM’s chief product officer, Joseph Inzerillo, stated at a firm presentation on Wednesday.
The new app will characteristic improved search, which is able to carry up outcomes throughout the three audio companies. It will characteristic tailor-made outcomes based mostly on a person’s earlier listening. Inzerillo additionally stated the new app will permit automobile listeners to entry artist stations and podcasts, as well as to the standard satellite tv for pc stations. And the automobile app will decide up the place a listener left off on their cellphone. The result’s one thing that works and appears a lot extra like Spotify.
Access to the cellular app shall be obtainable as a standalone providing for $9.99 per 30 days, down from the $10.99 per 30 days that SiriusXM at the moment expenses for its “streaming solely” package deal.
In the identical vein as Spotify, SiriusXM additionally introduced a partnership with Amazon-owned Audible to carry audiobook content material to its service. The partnership is anticipated to launch in early 2024.
Finding a means to consolidate its disparate audiences is existential for SiriusXM. The firm reported final week that it misplaced 94,000 satellite tv for pc subscribers and 112,000 Pandora subscribers up to now quarter, following even steeper losses earlier within the yr. Podcasting, in the meantime, grew 28 p.c yr over yr, however the primarily ad-based enterprise is far decrease margin than the subscription-based fashions.
The intention, it appears, is exposing its youthful (non-paying) podcast audience to its subscription choices and visa versa with its satellite tv for pc subscribers and podcasts. The firm is doubling down on signing massive names to its roster to get their consideration.
On Monday, SiriusXM signed former Late Late Show host James Corden to host an unique weekly superstar chat present.
Last yr, it acquired Conan O’Brien’s manufacturing firm Team Coco and its in depth podcast community. And SiriusXM maintains its two-decade relationship with radio celebrity Howard Stern. For now, at the very least, it doesn’t seem to be he’s going wherever.
“My enthusiasm for this firm is thru the roof,” Stern stated on the occasion. “I find it irresistible right here.”
SiriusXM additionally used this morning’s occasion to debut a new emblem, which speaks to its shifting audience. The new “SiriusXM” mark removes the radio waves on both facet of its title, a reference to its core satellite tv for pc radio service. Instead, it labored a star into the capital S, meant to promise star-power in its programming.
And right here’s the outdated one:
