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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Sirius XM Joins the In-Car Streaming Music Battle

In a sign of how the sands beneath the broadcast and music businesses continue to shift, satellite radio is joining the streaming music market in the car. Sirius XM will now offer in-dash access to its Internet Radio App in Ford vehicles with the Sync AppLink.

According to the NYTimes, Ford and Sirius XM said the app support would, for the first time, allow subscribers to use the Sirius XM Internet radio app on iPhones and Android handsets, making it possible to stream not only satellite channels but also personalized MySXM channels and on-demand programs like Howard Stern‘s. 

The services were already available online through a Web browser, but this is Sirius’s first full-fledged offering of streaming Internet services in cars.

Sirius XM will have plenty of streaming-music competition on Ford Sync dashboards, which already include Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker and Mog. There are also traditional radio stations offering streaming channels through TuneIn, plus independent station apps and Clear Channel’s iHeartAuto.

For Sirius XM, the new connection to the dash is less of a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” strategy than a way of keeping existing subscribers happy. Listeners still have to pay $14.49 a month for the service plus $3.50 a month for the app.

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