Sirius Canada is a
CanadianCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
company, a partnership between Slaight Communications, the
Canadian Broadcasting CorporationThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
and
Sirius Satellite RadioSirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM 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 of music and 65 streams of...
, which was one of three services licensed by the CRTC on June 16, 2005 to introduce
satellite radioSatellite radio is an analogue or digital radio signal that is relayed through one or more satellites and thus can be received in a much wider geographical area than terrestrial FM radio stations...
service to Canada.
On November 24, 2010, following the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and
XM Satellite RadioXM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
in the United States, Sirius Canada and
XM Radio CanadaXM Radio Canada was the operating name of Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. , a Canadian communications and media company, which was incorporated in 2002 to broadcast satellite radio in Canada...
announced their own merger deal, subject to approval by shareholders and the CRTC. The CRTC approved the merger in April 2011, and thus paved the way for both services to take the name
Sirius XM CanadaSirius XM Canada is a Canadian radio broadcasting company, which operates as a Canadian affiliate of Sirius XM Radio. The company received approval from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on April 11, 2011 to merge the formerly distinct XM Radio Canada and Sirius Canada...
. The merger was subsequently completed on June 21, 2011.
Canadian Satellite Radio, the former licensee of XM, will hold 30 per cent of the merged company, while Slaight Communications and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the owners of Sirius Canada, will each hold 20 per cent and the American Sirius XM Radio will hold 25 per cent. Mark Redmond, the president and CEO of Sirius Canada, will retain an executive role in the new merged company.
Unlike XM Radio Canada, Sirius Canada was a private company, and was therefore not required to release quarterly financial result data.
Subscription package
The initial lineup was announced on November 2, 2005, and included 100 channels, including 10 Canadian services. Ten more services, nine American and one Canadian, were added to the package in 2006.
The service's conditions of licence provide for a minimum of eight Canadian-produced channels, and a maximum distribution of nine
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
services per Canadian channel. Although
Astral MediaAstral Media Inc. is a Canadian media corporation. It is Canada's largest radio broadcaster with 83 radio stations in eight provinces, and is a major player in premium and specialty television in Canada, including The Movie Network, Super Écran, Family, Teletoon, Canal D, Canal Vie, VRAK.TV,...
produced two French-language music channels for the service, Slaight's share in Sirius Canada was
not part of Astral's 2007 takeover of Slaight's terrestrial radio assets.
CBC programming
- CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...
, newsNews is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
/information (Channel 159)
- CBC Radio 3
CBC Radio 3 is a radio station that consists of two parts devoted to Canadian arts and music: a radio service which is available on Sirius Satellite Radio and streaming audio, and several daily and weekly podcasts from the CBC Radio 3 website...
, independentIndie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
music (Channel 152)
- Première Plus, French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
news/information (Channel 160)
- Bande à part
Bande à part is the name of a website and a Sirius Satellite Radio station in Canada that are devoted primarily to French Canadian arts and music....
, French language independent music (Channel 161)
- Sports extra, French language sports news/information (Channel 156)
- Espace Musique
Espace musique is the French-language music radio service of Canada's national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation...
, French language music radio (Channel 153)
Slaight Communications programming
- Iceberg Radio
Iceberg Radio is a Canadian Internet radio service, which provides more than 100 channels of streaming audio. Founded in 1997 by the late John Walters and DJ Hedley Jones as the Virtual Canadian Broadcast Network, it was one of the first major ventures into large-scale Internet audio broadcasting...
, adult album alternativeAdult album alternative is a radio format. A spinoff from the album-oriented rock format, its roots trace to the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier freeform and progressive formats....
music (Channel 85)
- L'Oasis francophone
L'Oasis francophone is a Sirius Canada channel featuring adult contemporary music from French-Canadian artists, although broadcasting primarily French language music with mainly newer & older music...
(formerly Rock VeloursRouge FM is a network of French-language adult contemporary radio stations broadcasting throughout Quebec, Canada. Established in 1990 as RockDétente, they are owned by Astral Media....
), French language adult contemporary pop (Channel 88)
- Latitude franco
Latitude Franco is a Sirius Canada channel featuring new and emerging French Canadian music, such as punk, hip-hop, electronic and alternative rock music. It was born in September 2010 as a replacement for Énergie2 on the same channel, although that channel also played English music...
(formerly Énergie2NRJ is a network of French-language contemporary hit radio outlets broadcasting throughout the province of Quebec and portions of eastern Ontario, in Eastern Canada. They offer a personality-driven mix of francophone and anglophone pop hits and cutting-edge programs, catering to a young adult...
), French language pop/rock (Channel 89)
Third party programming
- The Score Satellite Radio, sports talk
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
(Channel 98)
In June 2006, Sirius also added an audio simulcast of
The Weather NetworkThe Weather Network is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel that broadcasts weather-related news and information 24 hours a day....
, now found on Channel 138.
Initially, only five of these channels (Radio One, Radio 3, Première Plus, Bande à part and Iceberg) were also offered on the US Sirius network, although as of late 2006 all of the Canadian channels are now available in the United States (although not on all Sirius receivers).
Contrary to some initial expectations, CBC Radio 2 and
Espace musiqueEspace musique is the French-language music radio service of Canada's national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation...
were not included, at least in part because, as their terrestrial CRTC licences allow nearly 80% of "special interest" (i.e. classical, jazz) music to be foreign, they would not be in compliance with the CRTC's mandate that Canadian-produced satellite radio channels carry 85 per cent
Canadian contentCanadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...
.
Sirius Canada's licence prohibits them from broadcasting "localized" content such as local or regional newscasts, weather forecasts or traffic reports. As a result the Radio One feed does not include
local programsStations in Canada's CBC Radio One network each produce some local programming in addition to the network schedule.The amount of local programming may vary from station to station. For instance, some stations in smaller markets may produce their own morning show, but air an afternoon show from...
or weather forecasts. Instead, the network's local programming blocks are filled with repeat airings of other CBC programming.
The Canadian subscription package of 110 channels includes the 11 Canadian channels listed above and most, but not all of the US channels.
List of Sirius Satellite Radio stations includes a graphic notation of which services are and are not available in Canada.
On April 24, 2006, it was announced that Sirius would become the exclusive satellite radio broadcaster for
Canadian Football LeagueThe Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
games, beginning with the launch of the 2006 CFL season on June 16.
Other differences
In addition to the differences in programming there are some other minor differences between Sirius Canada and the US.
When Sirius Canada launched, it did not offer signup over the internet; instead, new customers had to activate over the phone. Currently Sirius Canada offers activation over the phone, and internet activation with a reduced activation fee. As of October 2006, Sirius Canada allows internet streaming of material to subscribers.
The selection of Sirius-compatible radios sold in Canadian retail channels is limited to only the Sirius One, the Sirius Starmate, the Sirius Starmate Replay, the Sirius XACT XTR3CK, the Stiletto and the Sirius Sportster Replay. However, people report that Sirius Canada will allow receivers purchased in the US to be activated on the Sirius Canada system.
Recently on Sirius Canada's homepage, it started to offer the Stiletto 100 SL100 to its Canadian subscribers.
Also, it has been reported that receivers purchased in Canada can be activated on the US network. However, due to firmware differences, some Canadian channels may be missing from the line-up.
Howard Stern
On September 2, 1997, Canadian radio stations
Q107CILQ-FM is a radio station, broadcasting at 107.1 FM in Toronto, Ontario. The station broadcasts a classic rock format branded as Q107 and is also available through streaming audio....
(Toronto) and
CHOMCHOM-FM is an English language radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Owned and operated by Astral Media, it broadcasts on 97.7 MHz from the Mount Royal candelabra tower, with an effective radiated power of 41,200 watts using an omnidirectional antenna.The station has a mainstream rock...
(
MontrealMontreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
) began airing the Howard Stern Show. That day, Stern called the French "peckerheads" and said that "the French should bend over for me the way they did for Hitler". That broadcast, and others, led to thousands of complaints to the
Canadian Broadcast Standards CouncilThe Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is an independent, non-governmental organization created by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters to administer standards established by its members, Canada's private broadcasters....
. As a result of the complaints Q107 continued to air the Stern show but with an eight-minute
tape delayIn radio and television, broadcast delay refers to the practice of intentionally delaying broadcast of live material. A short delay is often used to prevent profanity, bloopers, violence, or other undesirable material from making it to air, including more mundane problems such as technical...
and some bleeping. CHOM stopped airing Stern in August 1998, and Q107 did the same in November 2001. Corus Entertainment's newly appointed program director John Hayes dropped Stern because he wanted to return Q107 to an all music,
classic rockClassic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
format. It was also problematic that Stern had been available since early 2001 on WBUF, Buffalo without the twenty minute delay or onerous editing that was taking place on Q107. Stern later announced his move to Sirius, effective January 2006, as the U. S.
Federal Communications CommissionThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
has no jurisdiction over content on subscription-based services such as
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
or satellite radio. However, the CRTC has always held content jurisdiction over content on cable services and is apparently able to regulate satellite radio content as well.
Sirius Canada's licence decision made no explicit reference to Stern but does obligate the company to maintain the same standards (i.e. the
CABThe Canadian Association of Broadcasters was the national voice of Canada's private broadcasters, representing the vast majority of Canadian programming services, including private radio and television stations, specialty, pay and pay-per-view services....
's
Sex-role Portrayal Code) as for conventional stations. The decision also recognizes Sirius's ability to air "adult" programming in separate packages, but even these must comply with the Code. (By way of comparison, even adult content from Canadian
pay-per-viewPay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
providers is subject to review prior to broadcast, to ensure compliance with the Code.)
Sirius Canada later announced that
Howard SternHoward Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...
's two channels, Howard 100 and Howard 101, would not be available to its Canadian customers. Naturally this has generated negative response from Canadian fans of Stern, some of whom have claimed that they would not subscribe to any service absent the two Stern channels. According to Gary Slaight, CEO of Standard Broadcasting:
Nonetheless, pressure from fans, many of whom were reportedly continuing to purchase
grey-marketA grey market or gray market also known as parallel market is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer...
American Sirius receivers, continued to build. For instance, Josef Radomski, a Canadian writer, announced on the January 11, 2006 Howard Stern Show that he had started an online petition to bring Stern to Sirius Canada.
However, the CRTC had not in fact
banned Stern's broadcast in Canada — Sirius Canada instead chose not to risk provoking an issue with the broadcast regulator. Nonetheless, there is some ambiguity in the licence conditions. Some media commentators suggested that Sirius Canada's reluctance to carry Stern had less to do with regulatory concerns and more to do with unwillingness to pay the American company's syndication fees for the program. Others might argue that Sirius Canada was simply trying to avoid the public relations and regulatory battle that would likely follow if it decided to carry Stern.
When Sirius Canada finally announced on February 1, 2006 — three months after the Canadian service's launch — that the Howard 100 channel would be made available to all subscribers effective February 6, the announcement was covered by most media outlets but did not generate any significant backlash.
In May 2006, Sirius Canada announced that it would add Howard 101 to its lineup. The channel was made available to listeners on June 19, 2006 as part of a 10-channel addition to Sirius Canada's channel lineup.
Sirius Canada and Apple
On November 17, 2009, Sirius Canada announced that the company launched the first official satellite radio application for the iPhone and iPod touch users in the country. The application is free from Apple's App store. Subscribers can now have access to SIRUS Canada's programming content, and commercial-free music channels.