XM Satellite Revamps Web Site

From Bob Dylan's weekly radio show to Oprah Winfrey's "Oprah & Friends" channel, XM Satellite Radio is now highlighting the company's original content rather than its radio players on its newly renovated Web site.

The revamped, largely flash-based site, which launched last week, was also simplified to encourage subscriptions and account management online rather than by phone--taking pressure off XM's call-centers during the busy holiday season.

"We created a whole new front end to push as many people through online channels to reduce costs for XM," said Eric Moore, client director at agency Avenue A | Razorfish, which redesigned the site.

Avenue A has worked with XM Satellite Radio's e-business and marketing group for two years on various projects, including last year's redesign of its online radio player.

The redesigned site highlights XM's roughly 170 channels, including concerts and music series, commercial-free music channels, sports, news, talk and entertainment programming. Other XM radio content includes Tom Petty, Opie & Anthony, Major League Baseball, and NASCAR.

The new site features discovery features such as "artist search," while "what's on now" helps users identify ideal XM channels and delivers real-time display of the artist names and song titles.

In October, XM launched a holiday ad campaign, including network and cable TV, print, interactive, direct marketing and retail. The campaign is XM's first creative from its new ad agency, Lowe New York, using the tag line: "170 channels to find what turns you on. Are you on?"

The new XM site reflects other design work from Avenue A, such as the entirely flash-based site for Mercedes AMG, a division focused on high-end, high-performance Mercedes. Other Avenue A clients include AstraZeneca, Best Buy, Disney, Kraft, Microsoft and Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

XM remains the market leader with more than 7.2 million subscribers, but Sirius has been growing faster, posting four straight quarters of more net subscriber additions. Sirius finished the third quarter with 5.1 million users. During the second quarter, XM pegged its year-end forecast at 8.5 million.

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