Satellite radio is an analogue or digital radio signal that is relayed through one or more satellites and thus can be received in a much wider geographical area than terrestrial FM radio stations. While in Europe many primarily-FM radio stations provide an additional unencrypted satellite feed, there are also subscription based digital packages of numerous channels that do not broadcast terrestrially, notably in the US. In Europe, FM radio is used by many suppliers that use a network of several local FM repeaters to broadcast a single programme to a large area, usually a whole nation. Many of those have an additional satellite signal that can be heard in many parts of the continent. In contrast, US terrestrial stations are always local and each of them has a unique programme, albeit they are sometimes interconnected for syndicated contents; but each local station still carries its own commercial and news breaks even then. This means that a national distribution of the contents of original terrestrial stations via satellite makes no real sense in the US, wherefore satellite radio is used in a different way there.
Read more about Satellite Radio: History, Business Applications, System Design, Satellite Radio Vs. Other Formats, United States, Canada, Europe
Famous quotes containing the words satellite and/or radio:
“Books are the best things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... the ... radio station played a Chopin polonaise. On all the following days news bulletins were prefaced by Chopin—preludes, etudes, waltzes, mazurkas. The war became for me a victory, known in advance, Chopin over Hitler.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)