A recent Patent from XM Radio has surfaced from June 19th, 2008 that might just give us some hints to the Upcoming Satellite Radio 2.0 service mentioned by Mel Karmazin during the 2010 Second Quarter Conference Call.

During that conference call Karmazin stated the following about Satellite Radio 2.0

Our next generation of satellite radios are expected to offer significantly more choices for the consumer and contain functionality that does not exist today in our radios.

If anything in this patent pertains to this new service (Launching in Holiday 2011) expect Sirius XM to change the way you listen to Satellite Radio. Not only that, this could change the Future of Satellite Radio as we know it.

According to the Abstract for Patent Number 20090320075:

A method and apparatus are provided for generating a personalized radio channel playlist by time division multiplexing songs from multiple received channels from one or more broadcast source streams in a queue. Users can specify favorite channels for building their personal playlists, or multiple default playlist channels can be provided by genre. Navigation tools permit users to see upcoming songs in their playlist queue and skip ahead and backward. Thumbs up/down buttons on the radio receiver permit entering a song or artist being played back into a favorites list that is used to search all channels for matches or a banned list used to block songs from future playlists. If matches are found, the channel carrying the favorite is extracted and added to the playlist. Channel searching for matches involves monitoring real-time song and artist labels for all channels carried in a separate data channel (e.g., Broadcast Information Channel (BIC)). Segments on the playlist are dynamically truncated to reduce the average time each segment is played to facilitate preview of playlist segments. Preview times can vary depending on the size of the playlist or number of channels used. During a preview of a segment, users can opt to listen to the full song or back up in the playlist to listen to a previous song. Connectivity options and web interfaces are provided to facilitate transfer and sharing of customization parameters for personalized radio configuration.

If any of the above sounds familiar, it is. Mentioned in this patent are well know services Pandora, LastFM and Slacker.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0003]On-line personalized radio service has demonstrated its appeal to music fans as evidenced by the continued growth of personalized radio service providers such as Pandora, LastFM and Slacker. These providers assemble personalized playlists for users by accessing a large music library where each song has a metadata field containing ratings on multiple stylistic parameters. A user inputs a preferred music style, and the provider’s system extracts songs from the library for the playlist based on correlation to the song metadata field. Advantageously, users are provided with the capability to accelerate their discovery of new content which is largely aligned with their personal preferences, by skipping over content in the playlist which the user finds uninteresting.

The great thing about this patent is that Sirius XM would not need to update or deploy any new or existing satellites for this service to work. Satellite Radio 2.0 would be a Hardware/Software solution built into these future receivers, think in line of the Slacker G2. This new service would share the current Like and Dislike options that are currently used on other services. But unlike Slacker and Pandora, Satellite Radio 2.0 would differ with it’s over 100 Channels ranging from Sports, Talk and Comedy to News and Music, something that would definitely make Satellite Radio 2.0 “contain functionality that does not exist today in our radios”

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0002]The present invention relates to a system and method for providing a broadcast radio service listener with the ability to generate a personalized radio channel playlist on a radio receiver from broadcast content as it is received. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for buffering content from a set of channels selected from among the broadcast channels of a source stream(s) as they are received, and for generating a playback stream using the buffered content that provides a multi-channel listening experience to the user with preview, reverse, fast forward and other navigation functions for the buffered content.

Based on the information above the new receivers would be Buffering (Caching) the live streams allowing you to create a personal channel. Did you say Satellite Radio OnDemand?

The XM Radio Patent also states that “Satellite radio offers more than 100 channels of audio content. After initially exploring the content offering, subscribers typically narrow their listening choices to 10 or fewer favorite channels, which may be any combination of music and talk channels. For example, a subscriber may prefer listening to popular music and may preset 5 or 6 popular music channels on the radio, along with a comedy channel and news channel. With present radio receiver hardware, the subscriber is limited to listening to one channel at a time and therefore misses the opportunity to be exposed to content simultaneously broadcast on the other favorite channels. A need therefore exists for a satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS)-based personal radio service that provides the subscriber with an option to be exposed to content simultaneously broadcast on multiple channels selected for building a personalized radio channel playlist.” “In addition, conventional personalized radio services do not carry news, live concerts or sports events which some users might like in a personalized radio channel playlist. A need therefore also exists for an SDARS-based personal radio service that allows the subscriber to select from among the diverse content channels simultaneously broadcast in an SDARS stream to build a personalized radio channel playlist from both music channels and talk channels (e.g., news, sports or comedy channels), the content of which is not typically provided in the on-line libraries of conventional personalized radio service providers.”

There is a ton of great information to read in this patent, from How they will use the existing Satellites and Repeaters to live broadcasts (events) and navigation. I suggest any fan of SiriusXM that a quick look and read over the patent. As of right now this is all speculation but based on Karmazin’s words from the conference call this could well be Satellite Radio 2.0.

[Source Seekingalpha.com]