On the heels of the announcement that Howard Stern is moving his show to satellite Radio, I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on the two major satellite systems out there: XM and Sirius? I've been considering getting one of them for a while now, but I haven't really done any serious looking. Any suggestions on which one is superior and what sorts of systems are best? I hear Sirius is the less popular, but given the power of the Stern audience, I doubt that will be true for much longer...

My observations, pE, are strictly from the sidelines, thoug as a career radio professional, I'm watching both systems with keen interest.

The hardware is running about the same for both services. You can get on board for about $100. At $9.99/month, I think XM has a slight edge in terms of value versus $12.95 for Sirius.

In terms of programming, I think it's a draw as well. The main draw of the music programming is the wide variety of commerical free offerings. I doubt any specific channels are ultimately all that different from one another in terms of content. So, the real appeal is specialty programming (i.e. news, sports, Stern, etc.). Quite a few networks are duplicated on both services. On the public radio channels, for example, NPR is represented on Sirius, everybody else on XM.

In short, if I were choosing today, I'd probably subscribe to both.

Incidentally, the only advantage I see to satellite radio over broadband access and streaming audio over the Internet is portability. Were I still travelling professionally, I would consider satellite a must. As it stands today, I'm rarely far from a high-speed Internet connection, which gives me pretty much all of the programming I want with the addition of music-on-demand subscription services, but that's a topic for another, forthcoming thread.

As I say, these observations are strictly from the sidelines. I've not yet taken the plunge myself. I would be very happy to hear from somebody who has.

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Even prior to the Stern announcement, I planned to install satellite radio into the next new car I buy.

I actually bought both Sirius and XM stock this past February, as I definitely think the future of the medium is satellite radio. I hardly ever listen to music in my car anymore...it's either Sports Talk, or a Book-on-Tape. I know I'll be able to listen to music again in my car with either XM or Sirius.

It's been awhile since I studied both Sirius and XM, but I thought in my initial analysis that XM was a better value, and had stations that I preferred. But this was before NFL games were being added to Sirius, so Sirius would now probably be the one I go with.

Both are pretty similar...I don't think you could go wrong with either, unless there's a specific station on one that you feel you should have.

I've always thought that satellite radio was a good idea. I dont think it has gotten as much attention as it should.

just wait till xmas im sure it will be runnin in full throttle in a walmart near you, and every hustler, pimp and player will have one.

From today's Washington Post (registration required...sorry):

AM-FM Radio Touts Strengths In Ad Campaign

The gist is the radio industry is mounting a print and on-air ad campaign featuring the likes of Nelly, Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Avril Lavigne designed to show AM and FM radio as the place that exposes listeners to new music and featuring the tagline "Radio: You hear it here first." Says David J. Field, president of Entercom Communications Corp., the nation's fourth largest radio chain, "Some of the arguments about being homogenous or not being innovative are absurd. We are more innovative today than ever before."

I'm curious, what was the last artist you discovered via the radio and was it a corporate-owned, privately-held, or non-commerical radio station. I tend to hear a lot of new music on two radio stations, KEXP (non-commerical) and WOXY (privately-owned and now 'net only). Neither of them are likely to be a part of this campaign.

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