Howard Stern is the only reason I will be purchacing a Sirius satellite radio in the next 4 months. Everyone has their own opinions, you either like him or hate him.

 

I listen to a lot of rock, so when I was deciding between the two, I saw that xm (supposedly) had two rock stations to my taste, 42 and 48 ( heavy and alt). After I buy the damn thing and wire it up though, I find out that they axed the heavy rock station because they got baseball. WTF?! Rock is one of the big 3 ( Rap, Rock, and Pop) so I don't know why they would not get rid of one of the less important stations first.

I'll probaly end up switching sometime this year to Sirius.

 

had xm and i did not like it at all, the clearity and signal sucked compared to sirius

 

I read an article in Consumer's Digest that said the biggest "flaw", (if you want to call it that), that XM Radio has is the fact that even though it's a paid subscription based service, they still have almost as many commercials on their channels as a regular radio station has. Sirius scored pretty high in the "non commercialization" category, so if commercials bother you, you may consider factoring this into your decision.

 

and how OLD was this magazine? XM and Sirius are both Commercial Free on the music channels. Sirius from the start. XM for about a year now. Commerical play on their music channels was about 10 minutes per hour at the most.. FM? try 30-40.

 

For those of you who have trouble distinguishing marketing hype from actual reality, go read this:

http://radio.about.com/od/xmsatellit.../aa022405a.htm

 

About.com, now there is a trashsite if i ever saw one. and i've seen that one for years. Sirius does the same little "promos" on their channels as well according to my brother who has it. some customers won't know there is a special program being run on a similer channel unless told, so instead of running the program on 4-5 channels they announce it on others so folks no and can keep the program to 1 channel. get off your "commerical" box as its broken down anyway.

 

You know what Nova5, you're absolutely right. I, Consumer's Digest and About.com, (and all the people who responded to that article), would like to offer you our sincerest apologies for ever thinking that our viewpoints about XMRadio could possibly hold a candle to your vast working knowledge about the satellite radio industry. In fact, your responses here have inspired me to spread the word to Consumer's Digest and About.com, so that they may have the same opportunity to understand that all their data is incorrect and that YOU are the man who truely knows best.

Wait, who are you again...?

 

At least your willing to acknowledge your ignorance, thats the first step in fixing it!

 

BTW the "Sponsored By" deals are directly related to the special program currently playing NOT the channel.

 

These would be statements all made by a man who's managed to contradict himself in the span of three posts, yet he's claiming ignorance on the part of others?


Years? Really? See that's funny, because the date that's up at the top of the article that denotes the time it was published was February 24, 2005. Here's that link again in case you're having trouble finding it:
http://radio.about.com/od/xmsatellit.../aa022405a.htm
Oh yeah, and here's the followup article that actually posts the responses of the people who originally read the article, and gives their take on whether XM's claims are what they say they are:
http://radio.about.com/od/xmsatellit.../aa042405a.htm
By the way, THAT article was published April of this year.


Riiiiiight. I know I, as well as anybody else who is probably reading this thread, would NEVER think that anything following the phrase "Sponsored By" could be anything remotely resembling a commercial. Nova5, what exactly is your argument here? If I didn't know any better, seeing as how adamantly you're defending the "No Commercial" claim from XM, and backing up their definitions of what a "commercial" actually is, I'd think you must be working for the place. If you'd go back and read my original post, I never claimed that Sirius was totally commercial free and XM was not, all I said was that Sirius got a better rating for having fewer commercials. Now, if you want to continue to hold onto the ridiculously stubborn notion that XM is 100% commercial free, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But in the spirit of fair play and majority rule, I'd like to hear what other people who have had experience with XM have to say about whether they believe XM is 100% commercial free like the company advertises it to be. Anyone care to chime in?

 

a few things cheif,
There are no contradictions if you use a gram of intelligence. Promos NOT= Commerical. XM DID at its start have commericals on about.. 40% of its channels, and they at the most were going to have 10 minutes. Actually it never got past 6 before the commercials were axed, price remained at the 9.99 price it had had since its start. Only recently with the inception of XMOnline did it rise to the 12.99 price to match sirius.

Sponsored by is ONLY for a certian program and only that small amount is given them, no commercial is played, only a notation..

About.com has existed for far more, The comment was directed at the site. Or couldn't you see that? Guess not, especially since there was no connection in my statement to the artical itself, only the SITE!
the Promo taggin at the end of a segment or full show on TV isn't a commerical, its who helped pay for that episode, now the commerical that immedialty follows that IS a commerical. Both services BOTH claim 100% commerical free music channels. The short little "This show sponsored by XXXXX" isn't a commercial. as it contains NOTHIGN about the company beyond that, not what they do, what they make, a specific model/item,etc. There is no followup commercial to the sponsor bit. As a Promo (for their OWN Programming on a different channel) is NOT a commercial, there are zero contradictions. Since the ditching of commercials i have never heard a Non XM related promo on it unless it has some relation to the music on that channel such as a concert that is in the works, etc and is spoken by a DJ... although shouldn't they now be called FJ's? File Jockeys?

I'd actually like to work for either them. Network/Computer fella, their technology would be great to work on.

 

If you distinguish between product commercials and promos for the satellite service (including announcements of special programs on other channels) then both XM and Sirius are commercial free on their music channels. If you don't make that distinction then I suppose you could say that they both have some commercials. The promos are very short announcements made by the DJ between songs and aren't anything like the blocks of advertisments common on FM. In fact, I find them quite informative since I tend to listen mostly to one channel unless I hear about something interesting on another channel.

There are commercials on the non-music channels but even then they are far fewer than on "free" radio. Many of those are because they're re-broadcasting the feed from a regular radio station (e.g. the NFL games are the local station's broadcasts).

 

Those channels never were claimed to be commercial free, nor were the news rebroadcasts, etc.

 

It amazes me how incredibly naive some people can be:

Okay Einstein, since you seem to be privy to some info that the rest of the world has apparently missed, why don't you clue us in as to what exactly the difference is between a commercial and a promo, and define each of them?

I can see that the duration of time that About.com has been in existence holds zero relevance to the context of this debate. I know this is asking alot, but could you please try to stay on topic?

Let me ask you this: what do you think the motivation is for a company to give money to a particular interest? To show how nice of a guy they are? Maybe. But wouldn't being nice mean that they would give them the money without expecting anything in return? Ahhhh, here's where the plot thickens. Because it isn't just a one-sided deal. These companies give money to these various interests affiliated with the radio programs because they get something out of it in return: TO GET THEIR NAME MENTIONED. I don't care how many different ways you try to slice this pie, the reason for the existence of ads, promos, commercials, tag-lines, or whatever other fancy terms these companies come up with to confuse you into thinking you're getting something totally different when in reality it's the same damn thing in a different package, is the fact that the main motivation that drives these companies to get their names and slogans out into the public eye all boils down to one simple thing: MAKING MONEY.

The purpose of a commercial is to make money. What was the purpose of a promo again?

I'm done debating this topic. All of your points have been refuted and yet you keep recycling them, and quite frankly your redundancy is getting boring. I will point out once again however that my original statement was only made in reference to Consumer's Digest's findings, so if you want to keep arguing this topic, go argue with them.

 

Commerical = Money Maker
Promo = Hey look whats on another of our OWN channels, doesn't make us money, keeps us from having the same thing on 10 channels at once.

You and are both continue to say the same things, the redundancy is not mine alone.
You're the one who brought up the timeframe, i simply said i find About.com as useful as a poison is healthy.

Promo's in general are to attract attention to a specific event, Promo's for the next episode of your favorite TV show, a new movie(in this case its a dual role also as a commercial so it suckers you to go pay to watch it), or for the next NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB game on some channel.

 

Getting back on topic, which has the better selection of rock?

 

Do you by chance have Dish network and their music channels? DishNet also carries Sirius, so you could sample them. music selection is purely personal. i would say both have close numbers. playstyle is the real key choice. Do you prefer FM style hits play? or a broader play of less heard but still good stuff? FM style, go for Sirius. Broader, go for XM. I enjoy XM's rock stuff. 70's, 80's, Top Tracks, Bone Yard, Fred, Lucy, and others.

 

Both services offer free trials online. Go to their websites and try them then decide which one has the music you prefer. I've had both and prefer Sirius but I know plenty of people who like XM better.

 

i think the main reason XM has so many more subscribers is simply because it came out first. i got xm upon its inception and had it for four years. it was 100x better than fm and i was completely satisfied. so when sirius came out, like everyone else, i shrugged it off thinking it couldn't be too much better than xm. plus, they were charging $5 more a month.

fast forward to 2005. hip/hop and rap stations on xm become garbage, continue to shorten their playlists, and play mainstream rap 24/7. on top of all that, they increase their monthly fee. so at that point i'm thinking, "**** it. they both cost the same. sirius can't be that much worse than xm (concerning rap/hip-hop). i might as well give it a shot."

after 4 years of xm, i can honestly say that sirius owns xm in the hip-hop/rap genre. i don't know about rock, it could be the opposite.

before i switched, i went on a few satellite radio forums such as XMFAN and SIRIUSBACKSTAGE. i found the opinions concerning rap stations to be the same. you'll find that xm fans admit that xm's rap selection is lacking. and i found sirius fans who switched from xm just for that reason. although i listen to a bit of everything, i listen to rap 90% of the time, so the selection in that genre weighed heavily on my decision.

my point is to search those forums (not that ls1tech isn't the **** ) where all they talk about is satellite radio. you'll find there are many people with both xm and sirius because they each have their strengths.