Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI) has announced plans to expand its industry-leading line of free-to-air music channels. The company intends to unveil two additional channels: PopRocks and Turbo. The two full-time music stations will commence operations on August 17 on the company’s satellite platform which is available to over 32 million subscribers.
Turbo, which was first launched online as part of SiriusXM’s streaming platform and PopRocks, which is a complete newcomer, will be run by SiriusXM’s experienced team of programmers. Turbo, which will be airing on channel 41 will mainly showcase rock music from the 1990s as well as early 2000s. some of the famed artists of those times include Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, System Of A Down, Godsmack, Papa Roach, Korn, and Linkin Park. PopRocks will air on channel 17 and will feature rock music from the 1990s and 2000s like Matchbox 20, No Doubt, Train, Goo Goo Dolls, Sheryl Crow, Coldplay and the Killers.
The two channels are an affirmation of SiriusXM’s development and introduction of new audio formats which have not been heard on any radio station. Some of the formats developed and unique to SiriusXM only include FLY (R&B and hip-hop from ‘the 90s and 2000s), Y2Kountry that mainly airs country music from the 2000s, Pop2k which airs pop music from the 2000s, Chill which features deep house and downtempo electronic, Lithium known for grunge rock and ’90s alternative and The Coffee House which mainly features singer-songwriter and acoustic versions.
The company is involved in incubating and adding new music channels on its online platform. These include Emo Project which airs pop punk, scream and emo and Indie 1.0 which will be launched on August 17 and airs Indie Rock.
While commenting on the new development, SiriusXM Senior Vice President and General Manager in charge of Music Programming Steve Blatter said the company’s diverse categories of commercial-free music channels has gone through a lot of evolution to meet the changing needs of subscribers. He added that the company received tremendous feedback after announcing plans to launch Turbo channel which is currently available offline.
