AOL and XM Joining Forces for Online Radio

Josh writes "BetaNews is reporting that AOL and XM are joining forces to make available 20 XM music channels plus 130 of its own available to anyone on the internet for free starting this summer. AOL members will have free broadband access to 70 XM channels, although apparently there are plans for a $5/month option for non-subscribers. The deal means AOL Music specials will make it onto XM's channels, and XM promos will be heard across AOL Music's properties."

Comments

connection speed

[Anonymous Coward]

wonder what connection the speed is.

AOL is a big target

[bigtallmofo]

How long until spammers and spyware authors figure out how to have audio ads played constantly throughout the "ad-free" XM radio channels?

I'm not sure if anyone looks forward to the days that XM content is sponsored by V1@g@ra!

is is missing a chance to revitalize itself...

[dAzED1]

for years, techies laughed at users of AOL and said it wasn't the "real" internet. AOL didn't work with normal browsers, wouldn't allow one to have access to normal things, etc.

There is a HUGE market for that now. Imagine an environment where spam is mostly non-existent because the network is isolated and only approved hosts can send email. Imagine an environment where sites didn't do mischevious things to your system. There's a market out there right now almost screaming to get the very thing for which AOL used to be criticized. There are millions of people out there that don't want 15,124,617,179,945,562 different search results for what they're after (esp when only 5 of them will be what they actually want, the first being on page 20 or so, and the rest will be trash), and they don't care to have to deal with all the other junk out there.

A couple nights ago I was looking for something online, and my wife and our roommate were in the room goofing off. After having to wade through pages of squatter-crap and such that had all the dumb tags that improve search engine results, I yelled "what have you people done to my beloved internet? It was a wonderful place until you all started getting on too!" I was only half-kidding. I never used AOL (I owned an ISP back in 95, and after that went to broadband for personal use) but I would count myself as someone that would sign up for a trusted environment.

Howard Stern and $500 million reasons

[bfline]

Stern, who signed a five-year deal with the other satellite company, Sirius, worth an estimated $500 million, left no doubt about his allegiance at the event. "Once you start listening to (satellite), it's like crack," Stern said to cheers. "You will be addicted."

XM has to do something to stay competitive with Sirius to stay on the map.

Re:When will satellite radio become profitable?

[Professor_UNIX]

Is there room for both XM and rival Sirius?

I personally hope they merge. I'm torn between shows I'd like to hear on both networks but I'm not about to get two seperate radios and pay two seperate subscription fees per month. It'd be like HBO and Showtime only being available on DirecTV and Cinemax and TMC are only available on Dish.

Re:Yeah, free...

[infonography]

It's not a positive change, if you get into bed even for a moment with AOL they will keep billing you. This is that slimey practice they have not changed. I tried their Netscape dialup and got burned instantly. Even after cancelling the service days after starting it they are still trying to steal money from my account.

I am all for XM but keep AOL out of your life.

Apple could make this irrelevant

[sjonke]

by providing an iTMS Subscription service, ala Napster's "On the Go". Napster offers (reportedly) poor quality, no indie music and no support for the Mac (all of which are deal killers for me.) If there were a similar, but done right, "on the go" subscription service for iTMS, for me it would put the last nail into "broadcast" music radio (not that it had much life anyway), be it satellite or otherwise. Apple could provide daily (hourly?) "radio" playlists sans "radio personalities" (and perhaps even some with "personalities" inserted between some tracks if you wish) that you can select to sync directly with your iPod to carry it with you. And with that on your iPod you can skip forward, back, pause, etc. Try that on XM. Not to mention that you could do it yourself, including exactly what you wanted, if Apple extended iTunes so that, with a subscription, the iTMS became part of your iTunes "Library", and thus applicable to "smart playlists".

www.spinner.com

[crazyfrenchmen]

What about spinner? It got bought by netscape and then by AOL. Now it's the internet radio offer from AOL. Any idea where it fit in the picture?