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

good concept, marketing plan isn't there yet

[fetta]

Satellite radio is a great concept, but I have a hard time seeing too many people subscribe under the current terms. The "itch" that this addresses (too many commercials, not enough variety) isn't severe enough to justify the $300 + $120/year. Especially not when cheaper "scratches" exist, like CD players. The audiophiles that I know are more likely to spend their money on MP3 and CD alternatives.

Maybe if they can get enough cars to come with the hardware preinstalled, they have a shot. But until they have that installed base of hardware, this service is a pilot project at best.

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:good concept, marketing plan isn't there yet

[scoove]

ok. i've got proof they're going to go dot-bomb. after posting my suspicions, i decided to conduct a highly scientific marketing study... i called my boomer dad.

me: dad, you hear about that satellite radio service with 100 channels going live?

dad: no, really?

me: (scribbling down note about how boomers don't know what we slashdotters do) hmm. ok well, imagine a radio service with 100 channels you can listen to in your explorer.

dad: sounds neat (jot down use of boomer word 'neat' to refer to something of value)

me: yea, let me read some of the channels they've got. (rattle off some rock, talk, classical, etc.)

dad: sounds great. i'd probably listen to that. how do i tune it in?

me: oh, well, that's a minor issue. you have to buy a new radio for your truck.

dad: oh. they can't get it on mine?

me: no, different frequencies. but the radio is only $300.

dad: you've got to be kidding. that much? for a radio?

me: well yea, but it gets 100 channels. and it's only $10 a month...

dad: $10 A MONTH?!?!?! forget it

me: (scribbling down how they've got the right programming for the wrong market. gen-x'ers i've chatted with would gladly throw the money /if/ it had programming of value)

so attention marketing dudes: you are waaaay off. your programming is for a market that wouldn't free up a spare dime for your service.

now that's off my chest, you guys owe me ten years of service with tag's trance on 24x7. get going!

*scoove*
did you know cows like trance? true!

$ 420

[Dolly_Llama]

if im going to spend 420, I'm going to smoke it too.

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.

Cassette deck?!

[Pope Slackman]

from the just-when-my-car-gets-a-decent-cassette-deck dept.

Jesus. What did you upgrade from, an 8-track?

C-X C-S

Orbits

[mangu]

...probably wouldn't work well in cars, and i'd always be getting interference from cloud cover and such...

The Sirius radio satellites will transmit directly to cars. They are in a specially designed orbit, with three regularly spaced satellites in an inclined orbit, which takes them very low over South America and high over North America. That way, there's always one satellite nearly overhead and moving slowly over the USA. Their control station is in Ecuador, where all three satellites are visible at all times. Unles you are in a tunnel, there should be no interference anywhere in the 48 contiguous US.

Why this might work

[skoda]

I see a few repeated thoughts against subscription radio. Here's a some thoughts on why they're wrong.

Anti-1) Just buy CDs.
At $10/mo. you can't even buy one CD/mo. Assuming good playlists, this is a cheaper way to get a variety of music. As for the $300 one-time cost for the radio, that will come down. CD players debuted at $500 - $1000 (?? just buy blank tapes at $0.50 ea.!); likewise for VCRs, DVD players, etc.

Anti-2) Listen CDs for good selection; don't rely on radio.
CDs play for 70 min max. Then it either stops, repeats, or you must switch discs. The point of radio is fire-and-forget. Pick station, and not have to interrupt work to fiddle with music selection. Multi-discs CD players reduce the problem, but don't remove it.

Anti-3) Use MP3 player to play large compilation discs.
Like Anti-2, it reduces effort, but still requires effort (both up-front to make the MP3s, and possibly to switch discs). But it's also Anti-1 -- you gotta have discs before you can rip 'em. Unless you steal music, but that's another discussion.

Anti-4) Just make your own mixes, and listent ot them. Why listen to corporate-run radio?
Uh huh. Just like you make your own DVD mixes, rather than getting cable-TV for movies, news, variety, etc.

For many of those people, the objections will be sufficient deterrent to trying digital radio. But early adopters are funny beasts, and are not easily stopped :) Subscription-based media access works (cable TV, newspapers, magazines), despite the wide variety of high-quality, free sources (network TV, indie 'zines).

There are many obstacles, but I think subscription, digital radio could work.

KKUP in Cupertino & Truckers...

[BumbaCLot]

Thankfully the Bay has one truly Public Radio station, KKUP. None of the DJ's are played, they have 15+ genres, and are 100% listener supported (quite possibly the only station in the country). Not that I would bet too many /.'ers are big reggae fans, but they have the most reggae hours on radio period. (XM just happens to have 1 reggae station I am streaming right now)
A point on XM radio, the trucking industry will be the first to take great use of this, on a trip to Mardi Gras from Indiana with my father, I failed to bring anything to read with me, and picked up all the free trucking magazines I could at local gas stations, and they were looking forward to XM in great force. It also interested me the amount of trucking companies who provided e-mail services built into their rigs to their employees so they could keep in touch with both their dispatchers and families.
Always remember not 'ALL' tech is created by geeks for geeks....

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

[maggard]

I commute almost weekly between work in Boston, Mass. USA & home in Montreal, Quebec Canada. It's about a 6-hour drive through mountains and with a very limited choice of stations, both FM and AM. As someone with a strong dislike of both religious programming and country music and with limited endurance for Delilah (an impossible-to-escape syndicated program) I'd be very interested in radio programming that I could receive uninterrupted en route.

My first choice would be for a live NPR feed though PRI and of course CBC would be welcome. All-music would be useful as an alternate though I'm really looking for something to keep me engaged on the long and at this hundredth-time boring night drive. Mp3's or other pre-recorded music aren't what I'm looking for (I already have a large collection of CD's & tapes) and so aren't interesting as an alternative. I could download some news & interview programming I like and burn it to a CD before each trip but this would be far more preparation then I care to do so regularly.

Unfortunately it appears that "satellite radio" will be as problematic for me as conventional radio. Driving through the mountains at ~45 North will likely result in service interruptions (doubtless the same as with conventional radio: always at the most interesting points.) Without much likelihood of repeaters in these rural areas this appears an inherent bug in the service and one which (at least for me) brings it from a strong possibility to something I'm not willing to pay much extra for.

A couple of tangential thoughts:

1. As Canada's CRTC takes no action to prevent piracy of US FCC-licensed satellite television broadcasts (aside from refusing to allow the services to be directly sold in Canada) I wonder if the same will hold true of radio broadcasts?
2. Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.

Finally, Howstuffworks has a much more complete explanation of the history of this technology and how it really works (the corporate web sites are careful not to identify problems such as the need for repeaters.)