The two companies announced their plans Tuesday to offer select Sirius music channels for the listening pleasure of Sprint mobile-phone users.

The service is expected to be available later this year, but both the media group in New York City and the mobile network of Overland Park, Kan., declined to provide financial or other details, including what the user fees will be and forecasts in user numbers.

The deal will, however, "be a new revenue stream ... and expand" the number as well as demographic makeup of those listening to Sirius, said company spokesman Jim Collins.

Collins told United Press International the satellite radio group's initial target demographic had been men between ages 18 and 49, but it now is broadening that scope, and the latest deal with Sprint should widen the target audience still further.

The company currently has about 1.5 million subscribers and expects that number to reach 2.7 million by the end of this year, in part due to the alliance with Sprint.

Some industry analysts, however, are less than enthusiastic about the venture and do not expect a cell phone to replace an iPod any time soon.

"This is a huge yawn," Bill Rosenblatt, head of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, a consultancy firm in New York City, told UPI, "and I'm a big fan of satellite radio."

Rosenblatt said one of the biggest obstacles for getting the concept to take off is getting people to pay - not only to listen to the radio on their cell phones, but also to use up their airtime doing so.

Sprint has not disclosed how it will charge customers for listening to the radio, he said, but it was likely the company will charge a modest monthly fee for it.

He added that it was likely Sprint would make listeners use up their airtime to access the radio network on their phones.

Rosenblatt said attracting even younger music fans to listen to the radio on cell phones, which still offer poorer sound quality than an MP3 player, "entails a change of behavior" in music listening.

"We're still not used to listening to music on a cell phone," he said. "We're getting there, but it's still a premature offering."

Meanwhile, John Nardone, chief client officer at Marketing Management Media in Wilton, Conn., and former president of Modern Media, told UPI he was surprised Sirius and Sprint would start offering music stations rather than news and talk shows over the phone.

"I wouldn't have started with that," he said, acknowledging that the companies most likely conducted extensive marketing research to find out which service users most likely would buy - and the forthcoming service probably out-polled news among younger customers.

One such user said whether or not he will pay for the service "will depend on the subscription cost and capacity."

Jeremy Proffitt, a 28-year-old in Virginia - and a moderator at Siriusbackstage.com, a message board for Sirius fans - suggested that the plan would be a better deal for the radio group than the phone network.

The agreement, Proffitt told UPI, "will give Sprint subscribers a quick and easy way to try Sirius before making the purchase of Sirius Satellite Radio hardware. I think Sprint and Sirius partnering up will increase subscribers, but I think most of those who listen to Sirius on Sprint will ultimately purchase satellite radio hardware."

Elliot Smilowitz, an intern for UPI Science News, contributed to this story.

Shihoko Goto is UPI's Senior Business Correspondent.

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