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XM Satellite Radio Comes To The PC
from the took-'em-long-enough dept
I've been fairly negative about the various satellite radio offerings, as I didn't believe that enough people were really willing to pay a monthly fee just to get better radio during their commute. Maybe I'm biased by the way I listen to the radio in my car - or, perhaps I've just seen enough satellite-based businesses fail to realize that it takes an awful lot of subscribers to make it worthwhile to put satellites in the sky. I'm still not convinced the satellite radio business model can work, but I think that XM is making the right move in trying to expand their market (drastically, in my opinion) away from the driver market by selling an XM radio PC receiver so that people can listen to XM radio at their computers. Personally, I spend a lot more time at my computer than in my car, so the justification (if there were content I was interested in) becomes much easier. Some are also wondering if XM's PC receiver will also end up competing with the various music services online - though, they serve fairly different purposes.
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Sat. music great for us
Our Canadian Bell Expressvu satellite TV comes with 30 music channels - "Galaxie" channels, by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. We're extremely impressed by them - we actually choose Expressvu over Starchoice (the other Canadian option for sat. tv) in part because of the commercial radio channels it had. But now we *never* listen to commercial radio - 'cept for the 3 hour Friday night no-commercial break.
Not only is the experience so much better without commercials, every song is listed on the TV as it plays - so I can find out the names of new groups, or what album a song I like comes from. And I often go online and grab an MP3 of a song... leading me into many, many more artists than I ever had before.
The downside for the record companies, though, is that because we can turn on the Ambient channel or the Jazz channel during supper, without commercials, I'm buying fewer and fewer CD's, and the ones I DO buy are the very non-mainstream, non-commercial bands.
If the channel's programmer is good, its better than randomizing your own music for dinner or a party. Unfortunately, we do suffer from Canadian content rules - 30% of all songs must have some Canadian connection. And sometimes the programmers do go "off" in their choices...
Anyway, after this experience I'd have to say it IS worth it to purchase satellite music, it does hold a lot of advantages over commercial radio. But you really need to experience for a while first to appreciate it...
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too bad
Clear Channel owns XM, if I recall correctly.
Forget that.
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