Satelite Radio Spreads Its Wings

[DudeAsInCool]

State of the Art: Satellite Radio Extends Its Orbit

December 18, 2003

By DAVID POGUE

RADIO is awesome, isn't it? It's free, it's on whenever you

want it, and you can choose from among eight or 10

stations. About the only people who could possibly complain

about it, in fact, are people who have to listen to it.

They'll tell you that the music you hear on the radio is

mostly the same cloying pop junk, played over and over.

That 20 minutes of every hour is ads, played over and over.

And that as you drive, the signal comes and goes with the

territory.

Two years ago, two companies - XM and Sirius - came up with

the same solution: pay radio. Each went to the trouble of

blasting private satellites into orbit. Each beams 100

channels of clean, static-proof digital sound down to XM

and Sirius receivers in the cars and home stereos of

monthly subscribers.

So why would people pay for radio, when they have a free

alternative?

Because satellite radio is fantastic - a cultural source

unlike any other. It's so addictive, the Sirius manual

actually refers to its customers as "users."

Because the 100 channels are largely free of commercials,

their program directors don't have to appeal to all the

mainstream, all the time. Satellite radio offers

specialized full-time channels for pop, rock, hip-hop,

dance and country (dozens), classical (several), comedy

recordings, sports, advice and news, old-time radio dramas,

audio books, Spanish-language programming, religious talk,

children, and on and on.

Because all of this is beamed from satellites, you can

drive across the country without ever hearing a certain

station fade away. Digital radio is also, by definition,

static-free; either you get the signal at full blast, or

you don't hear it at all. (That can happen when you go

through a long tunnel - the receivers have only a

five-second memory buffer - and occasionally when you pass

through concrete urban canyons.)

As a final benefit, the receiver's screen always identifies

the current song or program, performer and album name - or

the first portion, anyway. ("Red Hot Chili Pe," anyone?)

The result is a strange, intriguing hybrid sound source.

Thanks to the lack of ads and interruptions, satellite

radio resembles a CD or an iPod - yet it has a limitless

playlist. Because you can find forgotten gems, experimental

music and eclectic programming, it resembles a college

radio station - yet you never lose the signal as you drive.

All of this was true, of course, when satellite radio first

appeared two years ago. Today, satellite radio is even

better.

First, buying a receiver was a risky proposition in 2001.

You were investing in a dedicated machine that, if

satellite radio bombed, would spend eternity in the same

box that holds your eight-track tapes.

But XM now has over a million subscribers; Sirius has

200,000. Both are rapidly gaining in popularity, and both

have vast corporate financing. With every passing month,

their long-term viability (especially XM's) looks more

secure.

The second recent development is the proliferation of

receivers. What were once expensive, jury-rigged affairs

are now relatively inexpensive and nicely suited to their

tasks. You can get receivers in several ways:

PREINSTALLED IN YOUR CAR About 80 new car models (G.M.,

Honda, Audi, Nissan, and many others) offer preinstalled

dashboard XM satellite receivers; 48 models

(Daimler-Chrysler, BMW, Ford, and others) offer Sirius. If

you ever drop your satellite subscription, they still

receive AM and FM. (So that my research would be complete,

in fact, XM actually delivered a 2004 Accord Acura TL to my

driveway for three days of testing. I work at home, but

man, this thing almost made a commuter out of me.)

DEALER-INSTALLED IN YOUR CAR Delphi, Alpine, Panasonic and

other companies offer dealer-installed receivers, ranging

from a $100 Sony with a cassette deck to a $1,700 Kenwood

Sirius unit with a DVD player and seven-inch screen. (You

also have to buy a matching tuner.)

SELF-INSTALLED IN THE CAR With a little sweat, you can

install the Delphi Roady XM receiver ($120) yourself. A

tiny magnetic antenna grips your car roof, power comes from

the cigarette lighter, and a fake cassette goes into your

existing tape player.

DUAL-PURPOSE HOME/CAR SYSTEMS The latest receiver is a

calculator-size module that you can carry back and forth

between your dashboard and home stereo. XM offers the XM

Delphi SkyFi receiver ($130), which slips into $70 adapters

for the car and stereo system. The SkyFi can also serve as

the brain for XM's terrific $100 boombox - the only way to

carry satellite radio around with you. For Sirius, there's

the Audiovox SIR-PNP2 ($100), which fits a $30 car bracket

or a $50 stereo-system adapter.

ATTACHED TO THE PC For $50 you can buy an XM receiver that

attaches to a Windows PC, and use on-screen software as the

"control panel."

If you like the sound of all this, your next step is

choosing between XM and Sirius. There are some small but

important differences.

First, there's the monthly fee - which, considering the

existing torrent of monthly fees (cable TV, Internet,

cellphone, TiVo, and so on), is the one serious downside to

the whole satellite radio business. It's surely no accident

that XM, with its $10 monthly fee, has five times as many

subscribers as Sirius, which charges $13.

As noted above, XM also offers far more receiver options.

Both companies charge $7 monthly per additional receiver,

and both offer discounts if you pay in advance. But only

Sirius lets you avoid the monthly fee forever by paying a

one-time, lifetime-of-the-receiver $400. (The price goes up

to $500 on Jan. 1). Consider it a bet that the company will

still be around in the 31 months it will take you to break

even at that rate.

Sirius justifies the higher price by pointing out that

there's not a single ad on any of its music stations. On

XM, by contrast, 35 music channels are ad-free, and 35 play

an average of two minutes of ads per hour. (Both companies

have ads on their talk stations.)

There are slight programming differences, too; XM is 70

music channels, 30 talk; Sirius, with a 60-40 split, is a

better bet for talk-show and sports fans. (Visit

www.xmradio

.com and www.sirius.com to view the actual channel lists.)

Sirius also announced an agreement with the National

Football League this week under which it will carry all

regular-season games, and certain postseason games,

beginning next year.

Sirius offers both left- and right-wing talk channels. XM

offers a channel called XM Unsigned, featuring nothing but

new bands that, by definition, have yet to be discovered by

anyone else. At the moment, several channels at each

company are broadcasting nonstop holiday music.

(One of them is XM's jaw-droppingly bizarre Special X

station, which usually plays weird, obscure and funny

songs, from cartoon themes to hillybilly yodeling. This

time of year, it has played the bogus Christmas carols from

the animated "Grinch" special, a recording of the Christmas

song by Alvin and the Chipmunks not sung in chipmunk

voices, and a hilariously re-edited old recording of "The

Christmas Song" that now goes: "Jack Frost roasting on an

open fire/Chestnuts nipping at your nose.")

Incidentally, satellite radio may be flying high, but a few

notes of restraint are in order. First, the sound quality

is better than FM, but not as clean or rich as a CD's.

(Some of the Sirius talk stations, in particular, sound

"compressed," like a low-quality MP3 file.) Second, the

radio's antenna must generally be able to "see" the sky. To

use a home stereo receiver or XM's boombox, most people

have to thread the antenna box's 20-foot cable over to a

window, which isn't always convenient or attractive. (The

exception: in major cities, the companies have installed

ground-based "repeaters" that obviate the need for the

antenna to see the sky.)

Finally, remember what happened to cable TV, which also

started out as a fee-based reaction to the commercials and

unimaginative programming of the networks. Over the years,

most cable channels began carrying just as many commercials

as network TV did.

Neither satellite radio company promises to freeze its

current prices or percentage of ads. XM, in fact, already

offers the first premium premium channel - a Playboy

channel for an additional $3 monthly, the first step toward

a future filled with tiered, ever more expensive packages.

Even so, you'd have to be a sonic Scrooge to dismiss the

technical and creative achievement of satellite radio.

Prospects for the broadcasters' long-term health continue

to improve, and radios' prices have come down from the

stratosphere; the self-installable XM Roady car kit ($120)

and the XM boombox (with the SkyFi "brain," $200 total

after rebate) are particularly good bets. In short,

satellite radio is ready for prime time - and, by the way,

makes a Siriusly nice XMas gift.

E-mail: [email protected]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/technolo...cfccc1b0bd0f51e

[DudeAsInCool]

Satellite radio is definitely on my wish list...I will add it when I get my next car :)

[HolyMoly]

As the article stated, some of the stations (including all of the XM and Sirius talk-radio stations) have ads. If it was totally ad-free, I might go for it. Instead, on my wish list, I'm putting down an MP3 CD player for my car ... so I can slap in 10 hours of music I've "personally" chosen for long-haul drives (with no commercials guaranteed, hehe).

[spraymonkey]

Ah,corporate financing the downfall of anything good.What do you think is wrong with regular radio,corporate crap,that's what commercials are,ads for corporations.Remember when cable was new,it was great! Now I can't watch TV without so-called station identification taking up like 10-15% of my screen.Sure it's sweet now but give it time.f ciear channel gets involved every one of those chanels will be playing synchronized commercials :angry:

[HolyMoly]

Ah,corporate financing the downfall of anything good.What do you think is wrong with regular radio,corporate crap,that's what commercials are,ads for corporations.Remember when cable was new,it was great! Now I can't watch TV without so-called station identification taking up like 10-15% of my screen.Sure it's sweet now but give it time.f ciear channel gets involved every one of those chanels will be playing synchronized commercials :angry:

Your suspicions are well-founded. This is probably before your time but anyone who remembers the Golden Age OTR (old-time radio) shows knows that commercials, if any, were always placed at the beginning of a program or the end of a program. The only shows with ANY commercials in the middle tended to be the rare 60-minute shows like Lux Radio Theatre. But, when advertisers realized the potential for hawking their products (in the early days of TV), we quickly started going down the slippery slope to a point where more than a quarter-hour of every one-hour show is commercial time. As an example, I've been capturing Star Trek Enterprise for 3 seasons with my Dazzle capture device and, after editing, burning them to video CDs. Each show starts out in a one-hour time-slot. But by the time I'm done editing out the commercials with TMPGenc, I'm left with only 42 to 44 minutes of actual REAL programming (including pre & post show credits). And if that isn't bad enough, my local UPN channel "splits" the screen when the post-show credits run ... putting the credits on one side of the screen and commercials for other UPN shows on the other side.

The only thing on the side of satellite radio is the "pay" aspect of it. If people are paying money, commercial intrusion will likely be met with hostility and un-subscribership. Even so, I'm certain that "bean counters" at both XM and Sirius (aka risk-management specialists) are hard at work ... trying best to assess the answer to the question, "How much annoyance do you think we can 'get away' with -- 3 minutes an hour, 10 minutes???" And once they come up with an answer, ads will be more common. Not all at once, mind you. They'll keep their marketing plans a secret from their clients ... slipping a little bit more in each passing month in hopes people won't notice it. And, I suspect these ads will be (at first) short 10 or 15 second ad-bytes. But make no mistake. If they think they can 'get away' with something, they will.

P.S. And, I'd still rather have an MP3 CD player in my car, playing 10 hours of songs/programming I know I'll like than turning my listening options over to a corporation that's sure they've got me pegged.

[DudeAsInCool]

T

Critic's Notebook: High-Tech Quirkiness Restores Radios Magic

December 26, 2003

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

IT'S 3 a.m. on a bitter, blustery New York night, and from

a bedside radio on which the volume is adjusted to a

comforting murmur, the voice of an unfamiliar singer calls

through my half-sleep, and I have the sensation of being

transported to a land of sonic dreams I haven't visited in

decades. Not since I was a teenager enthralled by the cries

and moans of the Five Satins and the Moonglows on early

rock 'n' roll radio - sounds that Paul Simon once described

as "deep forbidden music" - has the mystique of pop radio

been so seductive.

The source of these sounds is not a local radio station or

a bland, faceless cable music service but a satellite pay

radio channel. Music beamed by satellite has resurrected

the thrill of musical discovery that has all but vanished

on what is called terrestrial radio.

From the rock 'n' roll heyday of Alan Freed to the

free-form FM rock of the Woodstock era, pop radio has gone

through many ups and downs before being creatively

smothered by corporate homogenization. At the very moment

when terrestrial pop radio has deteriorated into a

wasteland in which the role of D.J. is increasingly

relegated to announcing songs selected by market research,

satellite radio augurs what may be a new golden era of

music radio.

Barely two years old, it is already offered in two

competing systems, XM and Sirius. These services, which

suggest radio's answer to Home Box Office and Showtime,

carry the niche marketing of music to a new level of

refinement. Satellite radio is unlikely to restore the warm

feeling of inclusiveness that free-form FM radio evoked

among baby boomers in the Woodstock era, when Sly and the

Family Stone, Janis Ian and the Rolling Stones could be

heard on the same station. But in its own ultramodern way,

it resurrects the kind of intimate musical experience that

has all but vanished except on college radio.

With its transparent, static-free reception and digitally

perfect CD sound, it is a technological leap beyond

anything that has been heard on the airwaves. Satellite

radio has yet to reach the point where record-company and

independent promoters are beating down its doors to

influence programming, and representatives of both services

insist they intend to keep it that way. Let's hope so. That

purity is one reason that subscribing to a satellite

service is the closest you can come nowadays to going to

Radio Heaven. But the medium's biggest selling point may be

the enthusiasm that informs its programming. The

programmers on both services are experts in their genres

who return the missing ingredient to radio: real care for

what they play, which market-tested music can't begin to

match.

Still half asleep, I turn my face toward the orange glow of

the dial, read the song title and the artist's name as it

scrolls across a small screen, and rouse myself enough to

jot down the vital statistics. Come morning, I'll hunt down

the recording on Amazon and order it.

The satellite channel that has given me the most epiphanies

is XM's Channel 50, named the Loft, which is largely

devoted to four decades of singer-songwriters, from early

Bob Dylan to the present. Some recent discoveries have been

Damien Rice's "Cannonball," Phil Roy's "Melt," Rufus

Wainwright's "Vibrate," Jonathan Brooke's "10 Cent Wings,"

Cassandra Wilson's version of Sting's "Fragile," Matthew

Ryan's "Skylight," Coldplay's "We Never Change," Ryan

Adams's version of Oasis's "Wonderwall," Patty Griffin's

"One Big Love" and Richard Thompson's "I Feel So Good."

These more-or-less new recordings are intermingled with the

best of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen,

Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac and dozens of

other classic folk and rock performers.

Bear in mind that the Loft is only one star in XM's

constellation of 101 channels (Sirius has 100) embracing

the entire spectrum of radio, including music, news,

sports, talk, variety, comedy and children's programming.

Out of XM's 101 channels, 70 are music channels, half of

them commercial-free. (Commercials are widely scattered and

usually unobtrusive.) All 60 of Sirius's music channels are

without commercials.

Satellite radio originated in 1992 when the Federal

Communications Commission allocated a spectrum of the S

band for digital audio radio. Four companies applied for a

license to broadcast, and in 1997 two, American Mobile

Radio (now XM) and CD Radio (now Sirius), were licensed.

Each paid about $80 million to use the space.

XM has a music channel for each decade, beginning in the

1940's. Its 50's music channel does more than play the best

early rock 'n' roll. It immerses you in the era by

including vintage commercials and media sound bites from

the period. In addition XM has 7 rock and pop channels

(including the Loft); 6 country and folk channels; 8 urban

channels (including 2 devoted to rap and hip-hop); 7 for

jazz, blues and vintage pop; 4 for dance; 5 for Latin

music; 3 each for world and classical music (classical is

divided into instrumental, vocal and pops); 2 Christian

music channels; 1 each for movie soundtracks and Broadway;

and several eclectic stations.

Sirius has 9 pop channels (including individual decade

channels from the 50's through the 80's and 1 for Christian

music), 13 rock, 4 country, 5 hip-hop, 5 R&B, 6 dance, 5

jazz and standards channels, and 1 for Broadway. Its 3

classical channels are divided into orchestral, chamber and

vocal music. The chamber music channel (XM lacks the

equivalent) is especially fine. Sirius also carries

National Public Radio, without its popular flagship

programs, "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered."

After skipping around the dial of either service, most

music lovers are likely to settle on two or three

favorites. Besides the Loft on XM, I listen a lot to XM

Café (which is similar but has a slightly harder,

alternative-rock edge) and Frank's Place (the Frank is

Frank Sinatra), which is devoted to standards and is

programmed by the legendary New York radio personality

Jonathan Schwartz, incorporating his personal record

collection. (Most of XM's programming emanates from

Washington, but Frank's Place is one of five XM channels

based in New York.) Down the XM dial from Frank's Place is

its country cousin, Hank's Place (as in Hank Williams),

devoted to country standards.

The Loft is the brainchild of Mike Marrone, a 47-year-old

old D.J. from a radio and records background. What makes it

great is the fervor with which Mr. Marrone, a

self-described ex-hippie, communicates his musical vision.

His boundless enthusiasm is matched by his fantastic taste.

The music he programs pointedly underscores the continuing

vitality of a personal, often confessional songwriting

tradition that flourishes artistically despite its

commercial marginalization after the 1970's.

Mr. Marrone is as cognizant of the past as he is of the

present. On the Loft you will rediscover the best

recordings by artists seldom heard anywhere on the radio

nowadays, like Harry Nilsson, Laura Nyro, Andy Pratt, Todd

Rundgren, Jimmie Spheeris, Garland Jeffries, Nick Drake and

John Martyn. Others like Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, Loudon

Wainwright III, Bruce Cockburn and Duncan Sheik are played

regularly enough to qualify as what Mr. Marrone calls "core

artists." He was also one of the first D.J.'s in the

country to discover Norah Jones, whose debut album he

played weeks before its release.

Both XM and Sirius are growing rapidly. In late October XM,

which began broadcasting nationwide in November 2001,

passed the one million mark in subscriptions. It has a

projected break-even point of three million subscribers.

Sirius, which started in August 2002, has just passed the

200,000 mark. It expects to achieve break-even at two

million subscribers. The listeners to both services are

pretty evenly distributed around the United States. Because

XM and Sirius have agreements with car manufacturers to

offer the services as a feature on many new vehicles, car

radio is a major market.

The two systems broadcast nationally 24 hours a day. A

programmer in a studio punches a button connected to a

musical storage bank that automatically plays the

selection. Sometimes the disc jockeys are live and

sometimes not. Although lead-ins and segues are often

recorded a day or two in advance, it's virtually impossible

to tell if an intro is live or recorded.

Sirius is based in New York near Rockefeller Center. Its

closest equivalent to the Loft is called Organic Rock

(Channel 24), although the music is scruffier and more

eclectic. The Bridge, Sirius's mellow rock station, which

has no regular disc jockeys, and the Trend, an adult album

alternative channel, also cover some of the same territory.

Fantasy Ballroom - whose name echoes "Make Believe

Ballroom," one of the earliest radio shows to feature a

disc jockey - is Sirius's answer to Frank's Place and

features a rotating cast of expert hosts, including the

cabaret singers Eric Comstock and Michael Feinstein.

Although XM and Sirius have raided terrestrial radio for

on-air talent, XM, whose programming philosophy was

conceived by Lee Abrams, the man who helped invent the

successful formats known as A.O.R. (album-oriented rock)

and Smooth Jazz, has a somewhat more personal touch. Mr.

Abrams is a fervent advocate of personal communication

between programmers and the public. At Sirius, which has

grown more conservative in its pop programming philosophy

since a change in management, the mellow rock and pop

channels more closely resemble lite soft-rock stations like

WLTW (106.7) in New York.

But ultimately it's not its wondrous technology that makes

satellite broadcasting pop radio's (and maybe even pop

music's) brightest hope, but a phenomenon that in some ways

contradicts that technology. For the music of the night

requires guiding sensibilities. When presented by an

authority, it is not just a sound. Driven by a passionate

music vision, it becomes a compelling story that draws you

into an imagined world where music harmonizes with your

deepest dreams. The Lifetime Costs

Sirius and XM Radio are the service providers for satellite

radio service. The equipment consists mainly of the radio

and antenna, which can be placed by any window. It can be

bought at an electronics store like Circuit City for $120

to $2,000.

The XM receiver, which resembles a television remote

control, is $120 for a car radio and $199 for a home

system, which includes a portable boombox into which the

receiver is fitted. Sirius is about to introduce its own

similar boombox, which will cost $100. The cost of a Sirius

receiver and its cradle is $149.

Service plans are available for varying periods: from

monthly ($9.99 to $12.95); to yearly ($142); to two years

($199 to $272); to one-time lifetime offers ($400).

The unit can be installed in minutes by the purchaser

(instructions are available) or through the dealer.

The service can be activated by calling the company's Web

site (www.sirius.com and www.xmradio .com) or by calling

the toll-free numbers, (888) 539-7474 for Sirius and (800)

852-9696 for XM radio. Both services charge a $15

activation fee and offer a discount online.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/arts/mus...2fabeccd594b22c

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[HolyMoly]

I'm wondering about something. Those music channels .... is there a DJ behind a mike or is it just one song after another? And, if there's a DJ, does he start to speak "before" the songs completely end ... or speak during the first few seconds of the song? Also, do satellite radio music stations publish a playlist you can reference ... or are the songs played in some random order, with customers clueless to what's coming up until it plays?

[DudeAsInCool]

Some of have DJs; other's do not. I would bet they do have a published playlist--and the delivery depends upon the DJ..but Im sure its not like am or fm.

Offtopic, I listen to KCRW (Public Radio) in Santa Moncia. The website publishes listings--those DJs dont speak until after a set of songs are played.