• February 3, 2003

At the first of the year, satellite radio provider Sirius had 29,947 subscribers, compared to 347,000 that rival XM had. To help close the gap, Sirius launched its first ad campaign last night, with the first of six thirty second spots airing during The Tonight Show, The Late Show With David Letterman and Last Call with Carson Daly, as well as on cable networks MTV, VH1, BET and ESPN. Created by Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the multimedia campaign will include TV, magazines, newspaper, direct mail, outdoor, online, and in-theater spots, and will run through July. Sirius has also bought time during the Grammy Awards telecast on February 23 on CBS-TV. The campaign features the tagline, “It’s On,” and will focus on Sirius’ commercial free music channels. Sirius won’t say how much it is spending on its second round of TV commercials, but it is believed to be more than the $3M spent during last fall’s TV campaign.