TORONTO – SIRIUS Canada announced the bulk of its channel lineup today featuring 10 Canadian channels but no mention of bringing Howard Stern – who’s now basically becoming the feature channel on SIRIUS in the U.S. – back to Canada.
Sirius Canada will offer 100 channels of music, news, sports, and entertainment available and looks right now to be the only satellite radio provider to include 10 Canadian music and information stations in both English and French, including a multilingual service. This is an increase over its original goal of 80 total channels, eight of which were to be Canadian.
Its competitor, XM Radio Canada, has not yet released its channel lineup.
"We are launching SIRIUS Canada with 100 channels of music, entertainment, sports and information — the true A-List," said Mark Redmond, president and CEO, SIRIUS Canada, in a press release. "With 60 channels of commercial-free music, incredible sports coverage from the NFL, NHL, and the NBA, great entertainment programming from Maxim to Martha Stewart and up-to-the-minute news from CBC/Radio-Canada and the BBC… Canadians will be able to experience SIRIUS in time for the holidays.”
SIRIUS Canada’s gear will be available soon at Future Shop, Best Buy, London Drugs, The Source by Circuit City, Canadian Tire and many other retailers throughout Canada. The retail price for the equipment wasn’t announced, but the service itself will be $14.99 a month.
What wasn’t clear from the press release, however, is whether or not the Howard Stern channel will be part of SIRIUS Canada’s service. The release didn’t mention him, but the self-proclaimed King of All Media is getting heaps of attention for his move from conventional radio to satellite. He starts at SIRIUS in January – although the satellite company is offering a Howard preview channel with old interviews and other content.
Stern was famously imported to Canada through Toronto’s Q107 and a couple of sister stations years ago, but his show didn’t generate the kinds of ratings the stations hoped for and a few listeners complained loudly and often about the show’s racy, sometimes vulgar, content and he was pulled.
This morning, Standard Radio president and CEO Gary Slaight told www.cartt.ca that the partnership has "not decided" yet if Stern will be a part of the SIRIUS Canada lineup.
The Canadian channels are:
* CBC Radio One – Canada’s top-rated radio news and information source, featuring national and international headlines, in-depth business, political and arts reports and award-winning documentaries.
* CBC Radio 3 – dedicated to Canada’s burgeoning indie music and culture scene and the place to discover the best in new Canadian music first.
* Iceberg Radio – commercial free Canadian Rock provided by Standard Broadcasting and programmed by leading Canadian music programmer Liz Janik.
* Hardcore Sports Radio – Canadian sports news and talk provided by Score Media delivers sports information to the Canadian sports fan 24-7.
* Première Plus – A Radio-Canada channel providing French language daily reports and magazines covering news, current affairs and culture at home and abroad.
* Infoplus – All French language news 24 hours a day, combining the best of Radio-Canada and public broadcasters from around the world, including Radio France Internationale.
* bandeapart – a Radio-Canada channel dedicated to the best emerging Francophone pop, rock, electronica, hip-hop, punk and world music.
* Rock Velours – A French-language channel playing the best Canadian soft rock provided by Astral.
* Energie(2) – A French-language channel playing pop, modern rock and urban music in both French and English provided by Astral.
* RCI Plus -Radio Canada International programming for Canadians in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian and Mandarin, which will be enhanced by programs from around the globe.
For the full release, visit www.sirius-canada.ca.
