Satellite Radio Is Officially Here

dragons_flight writes: "XM Satellite Radio has officially launched, initially selling equipment only in the Dallas and San Diego markets, but going national by Nov. 15. A reciever for home or car costs ~$300 plus a $10/month subscription service. Many new cars will be pre-equipped with satellite-ready radios. XM provides 100 digital channels, a signicant number of which are commercial free. Sirius satellite radio says they are committed to launching be the end of the year." Any readers out there with the equipment for this have comments about it? ($10x12 + $300 makes $420 I'll be putting toward other things.)

Comments

Yeah, I'll probably pass....

[King_TJ]

Honestly, this could turn out to be worthwhile, *if* they provide stations that play a wide enough variety of music, and remain well-organized by music category. Having all music and no commercials/talk is a big plus. The big problem is that $10 monthly fee for the privilege of listening to a pre-determined playlist that you have no control over.

With the era of MP3 music upon us, I think many people will prefer to spend that $10 a month on blank media, and buy an in-car MP3 player (for roughly the same price as these satellite radios), and control what they listen to and when it's heard.

Re:What, no techno?

[roche]

There are 3 channels that look like they play techno. They are....

Ch 80 The Move Dance One Nation, Underground

Ch 81 BPM Dance The Spirit of the Weekend, All the Time

Ch 82 Club 82 Dance Urban Dance Music.. In the Mix.. 24/7

Public radio != no commercials

[Old Man Kensey]

Da VinMan wrote:

Instead of supporting this form of broadcast, why not send some money to your local public radio organizations instead?... They insulate you from the blatant and sickening commericialism.

This is not, in fact, the case.

Listener donations are an important part of community radio, but corporate sponsorships also play a big (often a majority) role. The only difference between a sponsorship spot and an out-and-out ad is:

1. A sponsorship spot is read by the DJ on the mic, instead of being a flashy canned ad.
2. A sponsorship cannot contain a call to action. You can't say "Call MyCo at 1-800-CHEAPER!" -- but you can say "The number for MyCo is..." or "MyCo can be reached at..."

Apart from those, there is very little difference between the ads you hear on commercial radio and the spots you hear on public radio.

I worked for a community radio station in Charlottesville, VA called WNRN (91.9 -- still have my t-shirt). They started off with 4 breaks per hour -- :03, :20, :35 and :47 plus the top-of-the-hour station ID live/liner break (or something close to that -- it's been some years). During donation drives the number of breaks doubled.

By the time I moved out of Charlottesville this past year they had added I think 2 promo spots to the hour. You can't get enough on your calendar otherwise to support the station.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not knocking community radio. I loved WNRN and the people who work there. But let's not talk about how public radio is "non-commercial" when that's simply not true.

Re:good concept, marketing plan isn't there yet

[scoove]

well, we're not quite a major market (we're in the top 50 population centers tho), but i can't see this playing here either.

looking at the programming, it's just like cable: 300 channels and nothing on!

for example, i like trance. so, checked the 'dance' section and we get four blah 'programmed by someone who's never heard of dance formats' channels - heck, these things are all dusty and decaying, yet it's supposed to be brand new. (dance programmed by some baby boomer, probably). no rave? no trance? blech...

so i jump over to classical. i'll bet they'll have a late romantic to early 20th century channel, right? not just that schmaltzy "best 10 songs of the past 500 years" (you know, beethovan's 5th, schuman's 'unfinished', and the other couple of horribly overplayed tunes). nope. what about a contemporary "stuff from the past 100 years" channel? nope. something opera? nope. just a couple of cutsie, shallow pop classical channels - again, programmed by a baby boomer who learned everything he does about classical by watching Mr. Holland's Opus.

*sigh* they'll last...9 months. nice to see we're wasting valuable frequency for trash.

*scoove*

Re:Why it's no good for me (& many others)

[hfcs]

DeLorme's Street Atlas, at least V7 and the newer Road Warrior edition, let you pull up radio station listings (am & fm, w/ freq and genre) for any location along a given route. Does that help?
-Bill

Re:I'd rather pay $10 to net access in my car

[Quasar1999]

What you want would require two way communication... VERY EXPENSIVE if it is satellite based... You would need a transmitter, and the satelitte in orbit would need multiple 'channels' listening to not only you but every other American with this service... It just isn't feasible...

If you wanted it for detour info, etc... a cell based solution is/should be available soon... but the bandwidth isn't there to stream anything... not for at least the next 5 years...