Fired XM today

The car will last much longer than XM/Sirius will. The 2 separate companies have already merged for financial reasons. I'd give them 2-3 more years unless something significant happens to change the popularity of the service.

I've had XM for 3 years, and while the it isn't a 'must have', it is really nice to drive on long trips and never have any static or have to change the station. So I think satellite radio in concept is a great thing.

That being said, there are flaws. If I want to listen to XM in my house, I have to erect an antenna on the roof to 'see' the satellite. They tried selling portable units, but those have the same problem with using them indoors. AM/FM became ubiquitous because you could pretty much get a signal anywhere with little trouble.

Until they can solve these types of problems, it will never be more than a niche service and will be overtaken by streaming internet based solutions as bandwidth limitations become less of an issue.

 

Since I joined Sirius several years ago, they went from 600,000 listeners to XMs 3 Million listeners. Now, they have combined, and have in excess of 20 million listeners, and every mainstream OEM car maker has a contract to provide one or the other in the new cars.

I would hardly call that a 'niche'. Compare that to the 'high' ratings that Jay Leno was having until he quit the tonight show, with about 5 million viewers. Now, consider that TV is free (at least NBC), where people are paying $$ to listen to SiriusXM, and explain to us how this is a 'niche' market?

SiriusXM is closing the gap very quickly between expenses and income, and expects to turn a profit later this year. (Disclosure: I am a SIRI stockholder, but these are all known facts).

 

What about the massive cost (including energy) to launch and maintain satellites in the sky vs the power required to run the radio transmitters? Not sure which side wins here.

And there are other tradeoffs. Local stations broadcast things that are of local interest that you don't get from a national broadcast. But XM does send (however limited) local traffic data for the NAV, which, sadly, local stations don't/can't do since there is no business model to allow this...even though many stations have multiple helicopters reporting traffic and have better data.

3PriusMike

 

Good point on the Energy side of things, but to be honest, that does not come into play for me on this choice.

To be honest, 90% of the time that I am in my car, I am listening to the one channel that I care about XM 100 (Howard Stern). After that, I truly could not care how I get it to come out of my speakers, as long as I can hear him. He is extremely entertaining and thought provoking.

 

And if they go out of business as has been mentioned, you are out all that money. Never will use XM and dislike those late afternoon calls for me to sign up

 

This is true for viturally any company that makes you pre-pay for a service. I am not living my life afraid that companies I choose to do business with will die.

This firm has a huge amount of cash flow, several hundred million dollars per month, they are not at risk anytime soon.

 

We currently have Sirius and really enjoy it. I really like the variety of music stations. Sometimes I am in the mood for 80's, or maybe I want to singalong to some Broadway showtunes. When Jersey drivers start irritating me, my husband puts on the Chill channel. A wider variety than my iPod has. I use my iPod for audio books. I like Pandora on my BlackBerry, but not too easy to change a genre while driving.

When our car gets here, we will be taking a gamble and getting the Lifetime subscription.

 

Same here, when my trial ends. I'll get XM Everything plus the Best of Sirius on a Lifetime, and the XM NAVTraffic on a two year pre-paid.

 

I am also a Lifetime Sirius subscriber....I'm assuming some of you have the plug & play radio like I do (Sportster 4). Has anyone installed this in their Prius yet?? I'm not sure where to mount mine & trying unsuccessfully to make do with just my iPod. Thanks for your help.

 

Get a Zune with Zune Pass plus subscribe to podcasts for talk radio. With a Zune Pass, you subscribe to a ton of music with much better sound quality than satellite radio. It has the advantages of having your music collection locally (better sound, no signal drops, skip or repeat any track, portability), but you get a constantly changing selection of new music instead of hearing your own tracks over and over.

 

If you call them now (as I did), they will do the following:

1.) Take you credit card information (but not charge you until the free trail runs out)
2.) Give you the best of Sirius now, for free, until your paid lifetime begins

and 3.) possibly give you an extra 6 months of NAV traffic. (They did not do this for me, but they did last week for another friend who bought a Venza.

 

Be sure to check your credit card statements carefully. If you ever gave that source to them they are probably charging you an annual fee automatically

 

While these guys mostly act out of call centers in Manila, here is a bit of advice. Be kind to the people in The Philipinnes. say Mabuhai! which means, long life. They have a tough job and would appreciate that.

Decline to renew, you will be transfered to someone in the USA. Tell them you are going to only Talk, Sports, News. Better, if you are canceling a second radio.

I did this today - two radios, full service, no music fees, total annual $ 148.46

Your bottom line depends upon state taxes if you wish to continue with XM/Sirius.

 

This is a very interesting thread. I have to say that I have never had any desire to use, much less subscribe, to XM radio. My iPod has always delivered all the music I could possibly want. So I've never seen the need to subscribe. And I'm not convinced that XM will survive in the coming years.

Yet, since taking delivery of my new '10 Prius IV last Monday I have been hooked on XM. There's enough variety of music to satisfy me and no commercials! Admittedly, I'm not saavy enough to detect minor flaws with music quality caused by compression, etc... I know poor sound quality when I hear it, but I simply haven't had the same "music quality" experience some of you have had. XM sounds very similar to my iPod, IMHO. My only complaint has more to do with the depth of the JBL system installed in the Prius (I've noticed some low-end vibrations that I would attribute to the rather thin door panels. I'm sure adding sound dampening material would probably lead to too much added weight). I digress.

I didn't know I was going to get a free trial of XM. I'm happy I did. The cost for the content seems worth it to me. I doubt I would opt for a lifetime fee, but I will certainly look into all of the subscription options. And thanks to those who have posted their specific experiences in this thread. Very helpful! :rockon:

-C

 

In the beginning of XM it was great for music, but they have over-compressed it to the point that I can't stand to listen. I still have it but I listen exclusively to news/talk and it is really nice for my cross-country drives. If one day I don't have to worry about driving so far then I'll probably get rid of it. (If it doesn't get rid of itself before then.)

 

You got lifetime XM with the Sirius premiums that include Howard for $500?

 

Ditto. Love it! Number of years back, I had it, and then let it drop. I swore when i got a new car, that getting XM/Sirius was one of my top "must have" features. Just discovered a new channel called "MargarittaVille" Ch 55, I believe. Pretty cool for those times i want to chill while waiting in traffic...

I only wish the NavTraffic was better. Lot of roads don't have flow information...YET, I can get very similar data on almost any road using the traffic App on my iPhone. I would have kept the subscription to Navtraffic, if it had more traffic info...similar to what's on the iPhone. But until it does, not going to pay an extra $4/month to get less traffic info that I get for FREE on the iPhone. Whomever is in charge of Navtraffic, needs to work on putting out a better product.

 

Over-compressed? Far, far better than anything available on FM. To my ears, XM is very close to my MPEG audio files I hear on the Prius' JBL speakers.

But if one is most concerned about the quality, and not the variety of continual streaming of music, then NO car audio system is going to do justice to that requirement. By it's very nature, driving in a car is very noisy, and introduces a lot of other sounds such as tire road noise, bumps and rattles in the car, wind noise, other traffic noises, etc. Back in my youth, I was an audio-file, with a $20K home audio system. No car system will give you the clarity, spacial diversification, separation and flat spectral response that one would get from a good home stereo system. Good audio is not about the exaggerated/distored bass that many teens want out of their audio system. Good audio is about reproducing, as close as possible, what was recorded in the studio/concert hall, jazz club, etc.