I’ve been given the gift of an XM Radio subscription. I used to drive by their (apparently now former) Boca Raton office all the time, and I’d see the “XM” logo on the side of the building and think that maybe I should get one. Then I’d check the prices and think they were friggin’ nuts. At the current annual rate it costs as much as Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go! IMO, pricing is why Sirius and XM have such dismal subscriber numbers, continue to bleed cash like it’s 1999, and are now merging as losers equals.
But so long as someone else is paying for my XM subscription I guess it doesn’t matter what I think of the satellite radio business model. After three days of commuting my impression is that “over 170 channels” still isn’t enough. Excluding everything that isn’t Music whittles the channel list down to around 70. Knocking out the genres that I’ll never be listening to (Christian, Classical, Country, Jazz, Kids, Latin, World, any Rock station with “Classic” in the description, and “Decades” from the 40s thru the 80s) brings it down to 35. None of the stations in the Dance or “Lifestyle” genres have made a positive impression, under “Hits” the Cinemagic and On Broadway stations can go, and under “Urban” it’s a safe bet that any stations with R&B or Soul in the description won’t go for more than one song before I reach for another station, bringing my list of stations down to a not-so-impressive 20.
Nothing left on my XM list is terribly distinguishable from the 5 terrestrial music stations I’ve got programmed on my car stereo, they just have fewer commercials for “male enhancement” pills and bars trying to make you think they’re as cool as strip clubs.
Looking at the whole list of stations I’m disappointed by what’s not there. “Rock” has 14 stations but not one devoted to female bands or what I think of as “High School Rock” (Wheatus, “Kids in America”, that sorta thing). “Dance” and “Urban” have 12 stations between them but none devoted to Drum & Bass or Southern Rap (Booty Music — Luke, 95 South, etc). Those are the types of stations that would be “sticky” for me.
I used to think that an XM subscription was worth maybe $35/year to me, but now that I’ve got one I’m not so sure that I would pay even that much to keep it…
