They’re tired of static. They’re tired of the morning DJs. They hate commercials. They’re tired of the same songs, played over and over and over.
These are some of the reasons folks give for why they decided to plunk down $13 a month for satellite radio.
“I have had Sirius for over four years and was one of the first subscribers from Michigan,” said Del Davis, a 30-year-old from Ferndale who listens in the car and at work via his PC. “I got it because I was sick of all the commercials and bland playlist of the local radio stations.”
Davis said he stays with the subscription service because of the variety of programming.
But if you want satellite radio, you need to choose: Radios on the market now receive either Sirius Satellite Radio transmissions or XM Satellite Radio transmissions — but not both.
Satellite radio is exploding in size.
XM launched in fall 2001. Today it claims more than 6 million subscribers. The company expects to grow to more than 9 million by the end of the year, and possibly as many as 20 million by 2010.
Sirius, which ended last year with 3.3 million subscribers, expects to nearly double that figure by the end of this year.
“When satellite radio launched several years ago, people made the assumption that it was solely for the automobile,” XM spokesman David Butler said. “Now you can listen to XM everywhere.”
Not only do both services offer some kind of Internet streaming for their content, the content can be accessed by your cell phone, using factory-installed equipment on dozens of makes of cars, on planes, in Starbucks stores, via DirecTV or on America Online.
The services, which now provide some local and weather information, are looking to transmit even more content to people’s radios.
XM navigation systems that are built in as Acura and Cadillac options offer real-time traffic displays to help on your commute, and aftermarket systems that do the same thing are popping up in stores everywhere.
And the competition has moved beyond programming.
XM is developing voice commands to change channels, a system that taps into parking garage computers (in garages where spaces are tracked) to tell you how many spots are open and possibly even video feeds.
Sirius is developing a way to provide flight data to commercial pilots and video weather information to boaters.
Subscribers say their major complaint with satellite radio is that by trying to pack as many channels and other services into the feed as they can, the services compromise the sound.
“The worst problem in my opinion would be the less then ideal sound quality,” said Jon Gebarowski, a 26-year-old in retail sales in Novi, Mich., who subscribed to Sirius in April 2003.
“Sirius has a certain amount of spectrum bandwidth given out by the FCC and it’s small enough to force them to compress the audio.”
Dozen of subscribers interviewed echoed Gebarowski’s sentiment. (A couple complained about the sound dropping out when they pass under trees or through tunnels in an area where land-based repeaters aren’t nearby.)
While the services say they are aggressively competing with one another, they both add that the market is big enough for two companies to thrive.
There are more than 220 million cars on the road, and if you add in homes, boats and other venues, that number jumps to more than 350 million potential subscribers, Sirius spokesman Jim Collins said.
“That’s the size of the pool. It’s big. We firmly believe it’s large enough for two players to do well,” he said. “It’s a service that’s very compelling and very addictive.”
The question is whether the 350 million potential subscribers might not already be finding other, free alternatives. Local high-definition radio offers free channels with much higher sound quality, and though they still have commercials, their secondary channels in their digital feed largely don’t — for now.
And then there’s competition on the Net, where Internet radio stations abound and are almost exclusively commercial-free.
Mike Pfeiffer, a 37-year-old salesman for an auto parts company who lives in West Bloomfield, Mich., has had XM for about 2 { years.
“I really, really do not like what radio pushes to the masses on a daily basis — bad music, bad DJs, tons of commercials,” he said.
He’s happy with his satellite radio subscription. That said, he’s not sure how long he’s going to keep the service.
“There are new media delivery services such as podcasts, which are free and even more niche-oriented than XM,” he said. “I find myself listening to XM less and less these days.”
But some savvy customers who say they were determined to stick with free offerings, admit they got sucked in by satellite radio.
Tamara Halliburton, a 32-year-old project administrator in Detroit, signed up for XM three weeks ago.
“I wanted satellite radio for a while, but refused to pay for something I could get for free,” she said. “I ended up taking a trip to Washington, D.C., and the rental car had XM, as well as the plane for my return flight. Once I verified that XM was NOT the company that had Howard Stern, my mind was made up.
“There are too many commercials on AM/FM radio, which drives me crazy. I also really enjoy the fact that I can listen to XM from my cell phone and the Internet.”
