Sirius Radio (Howard Stern on Letterman last night) and should I get one

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After watching Howard Stern go on and on about Sirius, I'm sold. After looking at some of the stations, and reading some playlists on ILM from Ian Christie, it seems like a great deal/idea/situation. I've never paid attention to it until now, and I'm wondering if anyone here subscribes. I have nothing else to ask for for Christmas...

― San Carlos, Friday, 19 November 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

xfm seems to be more common (i think?) but sirius is making the bigger splash with big names - stern, the dude from morning edition. if either offered wfmu and/or some other stations, like some of the stations you'll find taped on sublime frequency cd's, etc. uk pirate radio maybe? if it was effectively any radio i listen to or might listen to online i'd be tempted, although i can't imagine i'd be willing to pay much. still i see displays for it everywhere and hear 'radio should be free! don't listen to sattelite radio! listen to broadcast radio!' things on am a la those anti-cable and anti-satellite ads you'll see on tv so apparently it's got legs. hmmm it would be a good gift though.

― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

A friend of mine has Sirius and my girlfriend has XM. I prefer the Sirius as it seems to have more and deeper stations. Also, the Sirius interface has the ability to see what is playing on another channel without changing the channel, which I enjoy. This may be available on XM too, but isn't in the factory-dashboard receiver that my gf has.

― I'm serious ... Ti-i-i-i-im (deangulberry), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

deeper stations?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Stations with deeper playlists.

― I'm serious ... Ti-i-i-i-im (deangulberry), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a huge Stern fan but I was so pissed off at him last night for just using his time there advertising satellite. What a bore.

― 57 7th (calstars), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

i thought it was pretty interesting actually, and I'm not a Stern fan, and I thought it was pretty ballsy for Letterman to do that.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

also, there was probably more explicitly political talk on that episode of Letterman than there ever has been in the past

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just expecting more substance, since he built it up on his show to be this big defining moment where he would be able to say what Infiniti is not allowing him to say on the radio -- and it turns out all it was just a sales pitch.

― 57 7th (calstars), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:31 (twenty-one years ago)

The pitching was disconcerting but kyle's right, there was more FCC, Clear Channel and gov't bashing than anything since Michael Moore or (or Harvey Pekar). I was glad Dave let him do that.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I had an XM satellite radio and I sold it on ebay. The stations are just as formatted as regular radio. Sure, there might be an "indie" station and a "new wave" station but hey, same shit different day. It reminds me of those useless "radio stations" on my cable TV. Plus, you have to buy a car adapter, the boom box, etc, at expensive prices in order to use it in different locations. In the end it was so not worth $10 a month. I'd rather listen to my iPod and WFMU and leave it at that. Satellite radio will only take off if it's free.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 19 November 2004 22:59 (twenty-one years ago)

XM is in bed with Clear Channel. While that's a bad thing on the surface, it also means they carry a lot of local broadcasts from the country and I've been debating getting it because I really miss my Florida talk radio.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Friday, 19 November 2004 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmm, didn't know that XM and CC were linked but it makes perfect sense in light of Stern's anger at them.

― 57 7th (calstars), Friday, 19 November 2004 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

That's a good point -- if satellite radio was like satellite TV and you could get broadcasts from all over the world, that would be k classic.

― mcd (mcd), Saturday, 20 November 2004 00:09 (twenty-one years ago)

"Johnny Fever" endorsing XM Satellite Radio. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Maybe we were all better off still wondering whatever became of you.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 20 November 2004 00:15 (twenty-one years ago)

What about Webcasts? I don't listen much, not having that good a soundcard, but seems to be a lot of stuff, if you don't mind registering, in some cases. No charge (beyond yr. monthly internet bill of course).

― don, Saturday, 20 November 2004 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

CC is a major investor in XM. To me, that's 'we homogenized commercial radio to the point it's useless. Now here, buy our satellite feed if you want decent music again', which I just can't get past, so I'm going Sirius in the near future.

There are companion websites for each:
www.siriusbackstage.com
www.xm411.com
which offer (among other things) searchable playlists. From what I've seen via a few searches, Sirius has a smaller pool of songs and repeats songs more often, but you're still very unlikely to hear a song more than once a day on any given station. XM *might* be a better choice if you were going to be listening to a single station 24/7. Also note that the Sirius subscription includes streaming; to stream XM is an additional $3/month.

mcd, once satellite radio gets rolling in the UK/Europe, no reason why you couldn't get feeds of those stations in North America.

― Jeff Wright (JeffW1858), Saturday, 20 November 2004 04:03 (twenty-one years ago)

that would be great, the ability to get high quality radio from anywhere in the world would sell me on this

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 20 November 2004 04:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i have XM in my car and it saved our sanity when we were going across the country. they finally got a Public Radio channel, which is chock full of goodness from PRI. the stand up comedy and old-time radio channels are great, too. and it was my only source of Air America before the station in ann arbor started.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Saturday, 20 November 2004 05:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't have a firm grip on what's on Sirius when, so I know I'm missing a lot, but there a lot of attractions: Little Steven's garage channel, DJ Red Alert, David Johansen's show, the awesome all-breakbeat Boombox channel that matches Roni Size to Kool Moe Dee, the BBC News, and even a few old WFMU cronies doing folk and bluegrass shows.

I wish there was a way to archive my metal history show, I'd point to it now...

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Saturday, 20 November 2004 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Though the FMU people on Sirius aren't doing their FMU shows, I should note, they're doing the Sirius thing as a paying side gig under Sirius' programming terms. Thank you to everyone on this thread saying the nice stuff about FMU, BTW. Ian, I wanna hear yer show!

― Brian Turner (btwfmu), Sunday, 21 November 2004 00:39 (twenty-one years ago)

mcd, once satellite radio gets rolling in the UK/Europe, no reason why you couldn't get feeds of those stations in North America.

Well yes there is a reason. Sirius/XM would have to include those international stations. I don't know if they're planning to do that.

― mcd (mcd), Sunday, 21 November 2004 03:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Right, I mean there's no technical reason. . .I don't have a good enough handle on the demographics of satellite radio buyers to make a good guess as to whether there'd be a lot of demand for international stations.

― Jeff Wright (JeffW1858), Monday, 22 November 2004 04:23 (twenty-one years ago)

nine years pass...

The iphone app finally showing some semblance of usability after years and years.

― calstars, Monday, 3 February 2014 12:36 (twelve years ago)

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