They’ve tried before, they’re trying again.  Rumors circulate today that XM and Sirius are planning a merger (Updated to include Mark Evans and Ars Technica.  Updated again: it’s official).  The two companies together would represent about 13 million subscribers (6 million from Sirius, 7.6 million from XM), with a ~$8B market cap ($615/subscriber today), about $2B in debt, and roughly $600M in cash on hand (source: financial stats for SIRI and XMSR).  Interesting, as Echostar has roughly the same subscriber base, more profitability (and more room for profitability), yet only twice the market cap.

Another interesting thought is on room for growth. 13 million subscribers represents roughly 6% of the ~240M cars in use around the US, or 10% of households, depending on which model you think is more successful (I vote car).  So I ponder how much of a real growth opportunity lays ahead?

Apparently Howard Stern believes 30-40M households in the next couple of years. Bridge Ratings predicts 50 million subscribers by 2020.  That’s 1 in 5 drivers paying for satellite service.  This sounds high to me, from industry, professional, and personal experience.  I don’t see enough factors driving consumers into “dissatisfaction” with standard radio, especially when compared to the option of consumer more of their own content via iPods and other players.

Some predict podcasting and integrated car-iPod adapters may kill satellite radio.  That doesn’t really sound right either.  Talk to the average XM or Sirius subcriber, they seem quite satisfied with their service.  I think satellite radio has a “TiVo effect” where the product is quite good, and once in, you are hooked, but until you get there, you scratch your head a lot about paying extra money for something you seem to already have in your life. 

Unfortunately, unlike a DVR, which makes the entire TV experience leaps and bounds better, satellite radio doesn’t have as broad an appeal.  If you don’t commute for long hours, you’re hard to hook.  If you work long hours at a desk and want more variety in radio, odds are good that Internet services have even more appeal (not to mention the fact that if you aren’t near a window, you aren’t getting a satellite signal).

We’re about 5 years into the satellite radio business.  I believe there’s still a little growth ahead, but it’s going to be slow, and may cap out very soon.  I believe the companies benefit from a merger, as it leaves less FUD for a prospective consumer.  I believe it’s an industry doomed once pervasive Internet services become available and consumers get anywhere-access to services such as Rhapsody, Pandora, Last.FM, and their own personal media collections.

I’d hang on to it if you’re one of those ubermobile folks out there. If you’re like many people though that listen to music primarily in front of a desktop or laptop [insert picture of me with headphones here], you might find Pandora a very useful substitute for your music collection or shabby (at best) Internet radio options.

Pandora isn’t intended to replace your music collection though. It exists to complement it and help it grow. And from what I’ve seen, it does a darn good job.

Pandora is similar to an Internet radio station in the sense that you listen to music over the Internet.. and that’s where the similarity stops. Pandora does something much better than any radio station because it plays the kind of music that you want to hear and it’s fantastic at it! Radio stations (AM/FM, XM, Sirius, Internet, etc.) are channel-based that play music from particular genres. What Pandora does is allow you to enter an artist or song and a custom streaming music station is created for you that plays music similar to that particular artist or song, helping you find music that you’ll love that you may have never heard of before.

I know, I know, you’re saying “yea right, they play music in the same genre, no wow-factor there” or “sure – but I’ll just get the typical barrage of top 40, sponsored music no matter what I choose.” I can confidently say “Not so!”

Here’s the official scoop from the Music Genome Project, the brains behind Pandora:

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song – everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records – it’s about what each individual song sounds like.

The music that plays from your personal station is truly customized, based on the specific characteristics of the song or artist. This is brilliant!! I must say, I’m completely addicted because this really does work very, very well.

For example, I’m a big The Postal Service fan. I’ve thoroughly explored the “Customers who bought this item also bought” feature at Amazon without much luck in finding other artists with that thing about The Postal Service that I’m looking for. Fifteen minutes listening to Pandora and I had a decent list of artists and songs that I not only had never heard of but that I already loved! As is probably obvious at this point, this service, if it sticks around, could be very valuable to small label artists.

Check out the Pandora FAQ for everything you could possible want to know or just head over and create an account to check it out. Some of the features I love best about Pandora – you can have up to 100 stations at any time (variety is the spice of life!), all the music streams at 128Kbps (basic MP3 quality – not bad for Internet streaming) and you can even skip through songs (6 skips per hour per station). There are also ways to give the system feedback to even further tune the music to your tastes. Plus, of course, they’ve made it very easy to purchase the music you’re listening to.

Oh, and did I mention it’s FREE? The advertisements are on their way but there will be inexpensive premium options… how does $36/year for ad-free, find-new-artists, high-quality streaming radio sound? Music to our ears, I guess.

Sirius just announced its first portable satellite radio player, the S50, available in October. With a color display and the ability to store satellite radio programming and MP3/WMA files, the 1.9 x 3.9-inch player also includes voice-assisted navigation of content, organized by channel.

With a suggested retail price of $359.99, Sirius says the S50 will come with a 6-hour rechargeable battery, earbuds, a belt clip, USB cable and AC adapter. The unit will also come with a car dock to enable listening while at the wheel.

Frankly, it seems rather surprising that it took Sirius this long to get their portable player out – XM’s MiFi’s been out for nearly a year. Given that these portable devices will ultimately differ little in their core functionality (unless the companies start packing a ton of value-added features into them), the content war is really where it’s at. XM snags ex-NPR newsman Bob Edwards, Sirius signs Howard Stern in a cool five-year, $500 million deal…and on and on.

Faster is better. More choices is better. The roses can be recorded, downloaded, or streamed and smelled later when we have the time, say on the bus or in the bathroom. Who has time to stop and smell them right now? I tell ya who, Carl Honore does, and he says you do too. The TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference held in Oxford was where Carl gave his speech about slimming down our choices and slowing down our pace. I’m betting that from the beginning to the end of his speech, at least 50% of the audience had received an email, text message, phone call, or IM on their phone, laptop, pda, or other communication device. Come to think of it, I do not stop to smell the roses, because I don’t like to smell roses all that much. I’m going to change this cliché for my personal purposes and say, “you need to stop and smell the new car interior once in a while”. Hopefully that new car will have navigation, Sirius radio, iPod integration, and a 500watt stereo system with 11 speakers.

I always try to watch TV when I’m on the freeway, thing is, I don’t have a TV in my car. Following a SUV on the highway at night almost guarantees a TV with The Little Mermaid playing for a car seat or two in the back seat. I like the Disney collection as much as any seven year old, but I can’t handle the same the heavy rotation that they consume most animated features. My tiny collection of DVDs coupled with the poor reception for broadcast TV stations on the road would provide a very repetitious viewing repertoire.

Sirius sees this problem and plans to tackle it just as they did with top 40 radio stations that include 24 minutes of commercials in each 30 minute segment of heavy rotation pop songs. Sirius Satellite Radio (whom I did a review on earlier) is planning to release stock quotes, sports scores, music videos, and cartoons via their service in the end of ’06. With content like this I just may validate spending four digits on a video/audio system in my car. As of now I just don’t see spending $1000.00 or so in order to watch my 7 DVDs in the car on 5” monitors. Let’s see if Sirius will add channels like Food Network and G4TV, I may not leave my car.

Found via wired.com

It’s been three weeks now and I’m feeling a bit serious about the Sirius satellite radio. I have found myself parking my car, turning off the engine, and leaving the radio running in order to finish the song, talk show, or even a comedy sketch. I’ve done this even when I’m late to my destination because I feel that being 2 mins earlier is not worth wondering what was the end of that Richard Pryor joke or how E! True Hollywood Stories Alyssa Milano ends.

Sirius does a decent job with programming, I would have liked a bit more variety, but I’m one of those who always wants more. Drives from San Francisco to San Jose and back gave me a solid hour or so with the Sirius radio to see what it was really made of. The unit really warmed up after an hour of use, but performance was acceptable.

Click on the picture to see a video of Sirius channel surfing:


My Pros for the Sirius Sportster Satellite Radio:
Installation: Easy, Quick (took me 10 mins with no screws in the dash)
Appearance: Pretty, I like the color changing capabilities
Display: Large and in charge
Hardware: Sturdy and robust, I feel like it could take a nice fall and keep on going.
Favorite Stations: Area 63 (Electronica/Dance), E! Entertainment, and Raw Dog Comedy
Reception: Random 2-3 second losses, but overall many times better than FM radio
Coolness factor: Just saying “I have Satellite radio in my car” raised more eyebrows than you’d believe.
Discovery: I’d always discover something new be it channel, song, or news fact while tuning in.
Commercials: I only heard commercials on E! Entertainment, but all others I listened to were commercial free. The only break in music I found came from a DJ’s song announcements.

Cons for the Sirius Sportster Satellite Radio:
FM Modulator: Low quality audio
Size: Just a bit too big
Listening on the go: Impossible, you aren’t using this on the bus or on a walk.

Who is this for?
Sirius Satellite radio is just that, for the serious radio listener. If you don’t mind jamming to FM stereo commercials (by far the most annoying thing on the planet), listening to the newest pop songs every hour, and getting that snow-static-fuzz from regular FM radio, this is not for you. If you like a rather wide variety, crystal clear sound, and a read out of who’s singing and what song it is, then pick one up today –you’ll thank me for it. I will be happy to get back to my iPod because there’s songs on there that I don’t feel anyone else in the world likes but me, so Sirius would never play them. But I Siriusly am going to miss the Sirius Sportster Satellite Radio.

I ‘ve had the Sirius Sportster Satellite Radio for about 2 weeks now. In this time I have installed, listened, and enjoyed. The first week of Sirius radio entertainment was channeled to my audio amplifier via a line-in stereo jack which plugs into the rear of my car stereo. Since this feature is not available on every car stereo, Sirius has built in an FM transmitter. For the second week of my Sirius experience I restricted myself to the FM transmitter of the Sirius Sportster.

The handset transmits an FM signal, chosen by the user, and fed through a wire antenna, in hopes of your car stereo picking up the signal. My limited iPod experiences with Monster Cable and Griffin FM modulators have not been satisfactory. Therefore, I did not expect much from Sirius.

Upon FM setup, I dialed into 88.7 both on the Sportster and my car FM radio. The sound came through with no interruptions, and the sound quality was higher than my initial low expectation. I wasn’t impressed just yet, could the Sportster maintain a nice strong signal throughout a day of San Francisco driving?

The FM transmitter has a very broad range of frequencies, opposed to some modulators which are limited to the low 80’s or 90’s. I found the best frequency to be 90.9 FM for city driving.

I drove the ups and downs of the city of San Francisco for half of the day listening to Jazz, news, weather in New York, Bjork, Jack Johnson, and Ludacris. After a few hours of jammin’ FM style I switched over to the original set up of the Siruis line-out to aux input. There was a very noticeable difference in sound quality. The FM transmission seems to lose the richness of the low frequency sound.

Here’s a quick video of me cruising the streets of San Francisco with the Sirius Sportster blasting.

Results:
Using the FM modulator works well, but not as solid as the aux input.
The Sirius radio is a definite plus for any driving experience.

The Sirius Sportster comes with a few customizable features. The illumination colors, Amber or green, are available for the screen and buttons independently. Presets can be set with the ease of holding down a button for 2-3 seconds while on the desired station. There’s also a Jump button feature that sends you to a geographically themed weather/traffic station for imperative driving information.

I enjoyed 6 Electronica/Dance (obviously my genre of choice) stations, 4 Hip-Hop selections, 8 different sports channels, and 5 R&B choices for the ladies lucky enough to cruise with me in the Honda.

The two different means of displaying song information tickled my fancy. One mode will display the artist and title of the current track in block letters large enough to read from outside my vehicle. The other mode will show artist and title on two different lines thus viewing both simultaneously

There were a few cons to this audio goodie delivered via satellite. I didn’t like 3 seconds of dead air when changing stations. I’m accustom to FM radio’s instantaneous audio transfer that leaves virtually no dead airtime in my car. Also, once in a while I’d get a 2-3 second pause due to loss of reception. I could live with these flaws, but I wasn’t impressed.

The hand piece itself is humongous. My first gen T-Mobile Sidekick is smaller than the device. At 4 ½” x 3 ¼” with a 1 ¼” thickness, the Sportster wasn’t allowing me to do any sports while holding on to it. I am usually agitated with pocket buldge ie. iPod in a front pocket. The Sidekick however exceeds the acceptable size for a front pocket. Since the Sirius Sportster is larger than the sidekick, it’s just too big to carry comfortably without a bag of some sort.

Along the same lines of mobility, the Sirius Sporster appears to be rather portable. The unit can fit in your car, and in a boombox for out of the car use. With these two great additions to the Sportster nobody ever has to miss any programming. Wrong. I was very disappointed with the lack of an internal battery and headphone jack for on-the-go satellite radio enjoyment. A unit of this size should contain a small battery and headphone line out for personal use. I have seen mobile phones integrated with this type of technology, so I don’t suspect that fitting the extra parts inside was an issue. My assumption is a problem with reception. The car kit required an external antenna to be mounted on the top of the car. A boombox addition comes with a telescopic antenna for receiving signals. The hand held unit must require a clunky antenna in order to receive the signal strong enough for a quality playback signal, thus axing the internal battery and headphone features. Or they left the headphone jack out of the design to keep a low price?

I visited Beverages and More while blasting a jazzy cut by Miles Davis when all of a sudden the music stopped. I then realized that I had driven into an underground parking lot, one floor below the surface, and my signal sunk like the Titanic. I don’t plan on extended listening while in underground areas, so I won’t strike the Sportster negative points on this flag.

Up to date summary:

Sound Quality: superb
Ease of navigation: child’s play
Colors: changeable =)
Display: Large and In Charge
Variety: do-able, wouldn’t mind a few more channels
Reception: good, above ground
Coolness factor: I haven’t gotten any digits yet, but I feel them coming oh so soon.