"Too many commercials" and "not enough selection of music." Those are two of the biggest gripes radio listeners have. But both can be reduced — for a price — with satellite radio.
XM Radio and Sirius Radio are the two companies currently offering nationwide programming via satellite — the first major technological innovation in radio in 40 years.
Basically, these companies offer music, talk, news and sports stations via satellite transmissions that will be the same in New York or Los Angeles as they are in Salt Lake City. Purchase a special tuner and antenna ($300), then pay a monthly subscription ($9.99) and with minimal installation in your car, you're good to go.
Just like cable television didn't wipe out network or local TV, satellite radio is not viewed by local radio broadcasters as a threat. It's a competitor, but most local station managers feel that since satellite radio can't offer local news or local talk, it can never replace them.
XM radio gave me a chance to test-drive its product for two weeks recently, and here's what I thought:
The satellite antenna is weird, shaped like a small steam iron. I wasn't excited about taping the antenna to my car hood, as the instructions suggested, so I put it on my dashboard. In two minutes I was listening to satellite radio. All I had to do was put the radio adapter into the cassette player, plug the power cord into the lighter and turn on the XM receiver. (A cassette player in your car is required; if you have a CD player only, the CD-only receiver model is required.)
The digital signal sounded great. I was initially overwhelmed by the choice of channels, but my wife quickly reminded me that I'm too narrow in my musical preferences, and even this was not going to totally solve that deficit. And she was right. Just like regular radio, I was frequently scanning the dial for a song I liked — even though I had 69 music channels to choose from, more than triple the number available on local AM/FM radio and more music variety than I knew existed.
We're talking six "decade" channels with music from the 1940s through the '90s, six country-music channels, 15 hit-music channels, 10 rock-music channels, seven urban-music channels, six jazz-and-blues channels, four dance music channels, five Latin-music channels, four classical-music channels and six world-music channels (Hindu/Indian, African, Mandarin/Chinese, etc.).
Even so, the only music channel that consistently kept my attention for long was Cinemagic, a movies soundtrack-based station that included some "Star Wars" tracks and a sprinkling of older movie songs.
My wife was also not pleased that one of the first stations I came across was a comedy channel with a vulgar program. My two youngest children (ages 6 and 10) loved receiving Radio Disney at night in the car when KBEE-AM (860) powers down and can't be heard north of Salt Lake City.
There are also a wide variety of non-music stations — 12 news channels, five sports channels, three comedy channels, nine talk/variety channels and two kids channels (Radio Disney and XM Kids).
If you're stuck in your car for long trips — especially in the rural areas of Utah and the rest of the West — or if you're a trucker, I can definitely see the advantages to having satellite radio.
Otherwise, I don't feel it is worth the $300, plus tax equipment costs and the $9.99 a month service fee. You can purchase a house-plug adapter separately for a satellite radio unit, for use at home, but I didn't have one of those. And I can see that it would be a hassle to move the receiver back and forth from car to home. This regular movement also might wear out your equipment.
One drawback to Sirius satellite radio is that, currently, unlike XM, which is in all 48 continental states, it is only in 18 states, including Utah.
For more information on XM Satellite Radio, call 1-800-852-9696, or go online to www.xmradio.com; for Sirius Satellite Radio, go to www.siriusradio.com.
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com