America Online continued to expand the boundaries of its
Internet service this week, adding its latest wrinkle Monday when the
company announced plans to launch a Web-based radio service with XM
Satellite Radio.
The co-branded radio service is expected to bulk up AOL’s radio offerings
at a time when competition in the Internet radio market is taking off.
Industry heavyweights like Yahoo and RealNetworks, as
well as established broadcast radio players, already have the jump on the
Internet portal company.
“This relationship creates important and valuable opportunities across
our core businesses enabling us to provide unique value for our large Web
audience, enhanced programming for our existing and new AOL members, and the
ability to introduce new premium services,” AOL said in a statement.
The service will offer 200 channels streamed over the Web in high-quality
sound for a monthly fee of $5. It will combine existing stations from both
partners that will roll out this summer, according to the companies.
AOL already offers about 200 radio stations to its paying
subscribers and will not charge extra for the added services. XM Radio, the
leading player in satellite radio, currently operates 70 online radio
channels.
“Our philosophy at XM has always been to work with strong partners at
every level: retail, automotive, and now online to build awareness and
subscriptions for XM. We are thrilled to be partnering with AOL and
combining the creative resources of these two great companies,” Hugh Panero,
XM Satellite Radio president and CEO, said.
The 150 radio stations that will be available for free to all AOL Web
users will only be offered with lower-quality audio.
Although XM Radio’s 3.8 million subscribers will have access only to XM’s
online stations, some AOL programming will be available on XM’s stations,
according to company spokeswoman Ann Burkart.
The service will include a free, Web radio offering and an enhanced
premier radio offering that will be available to AOL members at no
additional charge and as a premium service to consumers on the Web,
according to AOL.
