Music From The Heavens - For A Fee

Judg3 writes: "There's an article over at Wired about how Sirius Radio [Warning: features rude Java - timothy] just launched the first of three satellites that plan to provide coast-to-coast digital radio to the tune (heh) of only 9.95$/month. Why pay for their digital radio when we have the free analog stuff? Well, according to Sirius, and their competitors XM Satellite Radio, people will pay the extra dough for the niche channels out there, somewhat like Cable TV these days. I dont know about you, but I'm looking forward to the '80s Glam-Rock Channel' and the 'Who 24/7 Channel'" I see this relegated to supplying soothing in-store Muzak(tm)-type background music -- won't free and micropayment-driven Internet delivery make this redundant for ordinary listeners? Still, I'd like to see a political-satire channel, or a stand-up comic channel, or a lot of other obscurities.

An unnamed correspondent adds: "Stereophile reports:'The Sirius 1, built by Space Systems/Loral, will be placed in an inclined elliptical orbit with high angles of elevation to the ground. The company says this type of orbit will improve reception in urban areas.'" Just as interesting, the article mentions a tabletop radio manufactured by Thomson, to be branded in the U.S. as RCA: "The AM/FM/IM (Internet Modulation) radio connects through an Ethernet connection on the tabletop product, allowing listeners to find thousands of different channels of entertainment." Nice to see Stereophile enter the MP3 age intact, too.