Somehow I have never gotten used to all the commercials on the radio. My response is to either constantly be switching channels every time a commercial comes on or else when I am feeling lazy, listen to public radio. Unfortunately even public radio is experiencing commercial creep with incessant remainders about who is sponsoring what and at least in our area what seems like a bi-monthly fund raising drive. I’ve been following the satellite radio story for about a year or so but did not want to have a awkward add-on box perched on my dashboard. Recently I got a new car (Infiniti M-35 if you are interested) which came with XM radio built in. I really love my new car, it has every gadget and comfort imaginable and it drives great, but the thing I think I like most about the car is the XM radio. I cannot tell you how great it is to get in your car and turn on the radio and know that you will get music and not another commercial. Both XM and Sirius are both commercial free all the time. You did get the occasional station plug announcement which in and of itself is a little annoying but this only lasts for about 30 seconds once or twice an hour. A far cry from the 20+ minutes of commercials that you are forced to avoid on regular radio.

Choices like never before

I think satellite radio would be worth it even if they just offered the same commercial play lists that you get on your commercial networks. Fortunately both XM and Sirius have gone one step better. Both offer around 150 channels of material. It is a little like cable television in that they have all these channels to broadcast on. Unlike cable television however there were not many existing channels that they could just include in their bandwidth. Instead both basically started from scratch and tried to create enough variety to keep everyone happy. There are about 10 channels of rock varying from golden oldies, to specific decades to specialties like heavy metal and grunge and most things in-between. There are about 4 or five channels of jazz. 5 or more channels of country music. There are world music channels, classical music, Latin music channels, comedy channels, news channels and specialty programming channels. Both even offer their own sports channels offering either Major League Baseball or NFL games. The list goes on and on, 150 channels worth. If you cannot find at least 4 or 5 channels you like then you probably don’t like anything. The best part is they all come commercial free. Yes you do pay a monthly fee but that is the price for keeping out the commercials. In my mind it is a small price to pay.

XM vs. Sirius

There are basically two satellite networks, XM and Sirius. For all practical purposes they are very much alike. Their music channels offer a very similar variety of fare. The quality of the sound is very similar. They have been trying to differentiate themselves by paying very big dollars to some big name personalities to have them broadcast on their network. Howard Stern supposedly received $100 million dollars for signing on with Sirius. A waste of a lot of money if you ask me, but they are hoping that he will attract enough listeners and enough attention to justify the cost. Both have cut high priced deals with major sports leagues MLB for Sirius, NFL for XM. If these specialty guests or exclusive programs are important to you then you should definitely go with that particular network. Often when buying a car you do not really have a choice of which network the manufacturer is offering. In my opinion whichever network you end up with your driving experience will be greatly enhanced. I look forward to listening to good music every time I get in my car. It’s time to move up to satellite radio.