[opendtv] Beating Over-the-Air, But Not Quite Perfect

Beating Over-the-Air, But Not Quite Perfect

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 28, 2005; F07

Satellite radio in a nutshell: I spent one night earlier this summer 
driving around and listening to the Washington Nationals close out an 
exciting win. Where I was driving around, however, was Charleston, 
W.Va., well outside the broadcast range of the Nationals' Z104/WFED 
radio network. It was not, however, out of range of XM Satellite 
Radio, which this season began carrying every game of all 30 Major 
League Baseball teams and beaming them across North America.

It was terrific to be able to keep up with the team from afar; every 
win sounded like the World Series on the radio, thanks to the vocal 
fans.

So, as the final out of this particular game was recorded, the Nats' 
announcer enthused, "Just listen to that crowd!" It was a cruel 
taunt. At that precise moment, I drove into one of a handful of dead 
spots around Charleston where XM service drops out for several 
seconds.

Hence, the often-simultaneous joy and frustration of satellite radio.

Now, with nearly 6 million subscribers between them, XM Satellite 
Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. have established 
a foothold as a competitively priced entertainment option for auto, 
home and mobile use. Like the cell phone, however, satellite radio is 
an infant technology compared with its predecessor, which has had 
more than a century to perfect its delivery system. And, like an 
infant, it still spits up from time to time.

On the face, Sirius and XM are comparable services: Both have more 
than 60 channels of commercial-free music covering a broad spectrum 
of niches, from old-school country to today's hits, from the most 
experimental jazz to the spaciest New Age, from the raunchiest 
hip-hop to the kid-friendliest Radio Disney.

Each has channels devoted to music from the decades of the '40s to 
the '90s; each has bluegrass and standards channels, each has several 
hip-hop and classical channels and so on. XM has a fun unsigned bands 
channel that Sirius does not have; Sirius has a groovy, trip-hoppy 
electronica channel that has no XM equivalent.

Both also have more than 50 channels of news, talk and entertainment 
and share many of the same third-party providers: Fox News Channel, 
the BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC and CNN.

And both cost a fair amount of money over time: The receivers for 
each start at $50 (in some cases, after a mail-in rebate), and each 
service runs $12.95 a month before any family-plan or pay-in-advance 
discounts.

But over the course of their short life spans, each service has begun 
to develop a personality and a direction.

Music fans will find a deeper and better-defined selection of stations on XM.

Sports and talk fans, however, will gravitate toward Sirius, which 
broadcasts NFL and NBA games. Sirius also has swiped NASCAR from XM, 
starting in 2007, and will resume NHL games, assuming anyone cares. 
XM cannot rival this lineup. For live action, it offers only 
baseball, the PGA Tour, three college conferences and IndyCar racing. 
Through its carriage of ESPN, it also broadcasts the NBA playoffs but 
not the regular season.

Of course, Sirius also can claim the sui generis Howard Stern, who 
probably will be good for 1 million new subscribers on his own after 
he joins Sirius in January.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082700203.html

 
 
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