I will not pay for radio, so unless the subscription is free it will just be a useless piece of technology.

i had a 3mon trial after buying my car…then i went to cancel and they gave me another 3 mon free…i just canceled it again. They have commercials…i hear stuff for gotomypc.com and foreclosure listings. there is no way im paying to listen to commercials. i have an iPod, i have 3 days worth of commercial free music.

^such a loser comment..

um ok, do you not pay for cable or a phone either? what about electricity or heat? do you walk every where?

how are you posting on this site- are you paying for an internet connection?

MORON

Zan: my thoughts exactly.

Exactly, just be happy that they offer the free trial. Maybe you will really enjoy listening to it (what they are wishing for). And if not, don’t listen and cancel, but do not complain that it is offered…

XM is fantastic – the lack of FCC oversight alone makes it worth the $12.95 a month. opie & anthony are the funniest thing on the platform; XM 41 da boneyard is great for vintage heavy metal – the decade channels (4-9) are fantastic, and so on.

some channels have commercials, due to them being rebroadcasts of terrestrial radio (e.g. syndicated programming) or a few music channels that XM has programmed for them by clearchannel. otherwise, commercial free.

besides, who cares? it’s all about the quality of the content. i’d listen to terrestrial radio and its commercials again if the content were any good.

but it isn’t.

satellite radio forever!

“OpOp and “ACK ACK” kick ass.

I wish that instead of having 2 different bits of technology, XM and Sirius could have agreed upon one standard so I could pick to subscribe to one or both services if I so chose, with one piece of equipment needed. As it stands now, both services have some compelling programming, but neither one has enough to make me shell out the cash to be a reciever. Examples of where this exists already are: telephones, tv’s, standard radios, wireless networking gear, wired networking gear, electrical equipment.

If we didn’t have these standards, you would need to subscribe to the Sony power grid and cable tv network to get any programming. Not to mention buying only a Sony DVD player and VCR. That would, of course, be absurd. And that’s where the satellite radio market is now. Also the cell phone market — why can’t there be one network with many providers? It seems to work well enough for power generation and in Europe …… at a certain point it’s prohibitive to innovation to rely only on proprietary interfaces.

snopesman – they have two totally different kinds of satellites – sirius uses three polar-orbit (soviet-style) where at any given time you’re negotiating between 1 and 2 of them; XM uses “rock” and “roll” – two geosynchronous birds over either US coast. the antennae between the two systems are radically different, not to mention the encryption they use to keep aholes from stealing their signal, a la cable tv circa 1982.

i’d like to see receivers that pick up both – but that would violate their duopolly and probably bring the wingnut laissez-faire morons at the FCC out of their government spectrum auction giveaway slumber just long enough to regulate satellite and then, effectively, kill it.

remember – conservatives love free-market policies so long as they’re free to own the market. the minute someone else gets the upper hand on them – they run crying to Big Daddy Government for another handout – or in the FCC’s case, a smackdown on the upstart competitors. which is was clear channel and infinity were doing until very, very recently, due to satellite’s complete lack of FCC regulation for content.

the smartest thing XM ever did was cut a deal with CBS (nee Infinity) to license the O&A program to take over the old Stern slots – it got them into financial bed with their biggest competitor (terrestrial radio) and married them, likely for good.

Hmmm. From what I understand the additional equipment is about $100 per car currently. So if they make that standard I pay $100 for a pile of junk I dont want, plus I have to look at a button on the radio to remind me I bought a pile of junk I don’t want. Guess who’s gonna be skipping Acura?

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