How much is XM hurting FM now days?

[jras20]

I havn't heard much about XM vs FM here lately. I mostly hear now mobile and internet radio. Is XM still in the picture some what? I probably would never get XM again since the sound quality and service is horrible.

 

[davideduardo]

I havn't heard much about XM vs FM here lately. I mostly hear now mobile and internet radio. Is XM still in the picture some what? I probably would never get XM again since the sound quality and service is horrible.

Keep in mind that XM is nearly 100% in cars, with rather limited web subscribers. There are 26 million subscribers. That's out of perhaps 180 million cars.

Only about a third of radio listening is in the car, and XM has car penetration of about 15%... so that's about 5% penetration for total listening... assuming every XM subscriber only listens to XM in the car... which is not a safe assumption.

I have XM in three cars; one car "lives" in a smaller market where local radio is unbearable. The other two spend lots of time driving in and out of FM station coverage areas, so satellite is a more reliable option. While most of the music formats have playlists that are a bit too deep with too many secondary songs, I also like having the BBC, NPR and talk formats of various inclinations.

Yes, the quality could be better, and the customer service is abominable, but XM serves a definite purpose.

 

[stan]

Plus, XM has channels like Deep Tracks that play a wider list of music than FM.

 

[jras20]

XM should be like my phone company you can do everything on line - manage your accounts cancel etc.

Looks like with it both XM and Sirius now they could have more bandwidth for better audio quality.

 

[davideduardo]

XM should be like my phone company you can do everything on line - manage your accounts cancel etc.

Looks like with it both XM and Sirius now they could have more bandwidth for better audio quality.

The problem is that most installed radios (prior to the merger) receive either the XM or the Sirius band but not both. So to keep the current number of channels on every receiver, they can't expand bandwidth.

 

[johndavis]

There is a new modulation technique that they are using for the 20 "Xtra Channels" they have on the XM system. However, only a handful of the newest OEM radios can get these and only a couple aftermarket ones. I have no idea if these sound any better than the original ones.

The rumor is they would like to sunset one of the two systems and only use one, but as you point out, all the cars on the road that are using the older technology aren't headed to the scrap heap any time soon, so they're kind of stuck running two incompatible systems in parallel based on technology that's over a decade old.

 

[Ryan Williams]

I have XM in three cars; one car "lives" in a smaller market where local radio is unbearable.

Local radio in small markets is unbearable. Most medium markets too. But there is lots of bad radio on the SiriusXM channels too.

Commercials aside, I don't think most of SXM channels are up to the same quality as the equivalent stations in say LA. KIIS is better than Hits 1. KROQ is better than Alt Nation. Power is way way better than The Heat. Quality of program directors, music scheduling, personalities, but mostly just care and attention. They might be in the same ballpark as Houston, which is probably the weakest of the 10 major markets.

Of course a lot of the SXM channels have no terrestrial equivalents.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Local radio in small markets is unbearable. Most medium markets too. But there is lots of bad radio on the SiriusXM channels too.

Commercials aside, I don't think most of SXM channels are up to the same quality as the equivalent stations in say LA. KIIS is better than Hits 1. KROQ is better than Alt Nation. Power is way way better than The Heat. Quality of program directors, music scheduling, personalities, but mostly just care and attention. They might be in the same ballpark as Houston, which is probably the weakest of the 10 major markets.

Of course a lot of the SXM channels have no terrestrial equivalents.

I doubt I would be an engineer if it weren't for horrible small town radio. The DX'ing techniques I learned have served me well in the world of RF electronics design. It also helped me on the other side of the microphone, when I occasionally had to fix the station before I could go on the air!

 

[TheBigA]

One area where Sirius/XM isn't affecting FM at all is in local sales.

 

[jras20]

I had a portable XM radio but it went out just about everytime I went under a tree!