Sirius Satellite Radio Expands Offering Beyond Audio

Sirius Satellite Radio has announced a technology upgrade and plans to provide new services, such as cartoons, music videos, sports scores, and stock quotes, starting the second half of next year. The company's satellite uplink and terrestrial repeater upgrade will add network capacity for additional audio radio channels and new video and data services. Customers will need to upgrade their equipment to take advantage of the new video and data services (pricing information isn't yet available), but existing equipment will continue to work the company's current offerings. Sirius also announced an agreement with Sprint in which Sirius will provide some of its music channels to Sprint's cell phone customers. The companies will launch a new service later this year that will let Sprint customers subscribe to a Sirius package and listen to the music on their cell phones. Sirius is currently battling XM Satellite Radio and traditional radio stations for subscribers. Sirius has about 1.5 million subscribers; XM has about 4 million subscribers.