Date:         Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:33:35 -0800
Reply-To:     Jeffrey Schwaia <jeff@VANAGONPARTS.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jeffrey Schwaia <jeff@VANAGONPARTS.COM>
Subject:      Re: SIRIUS or XM?
In-Reply-To:  <001801c51936$b73d3f60$4c657d18@hsd1.va.comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

NASCAR & Howard Stern

Now that's an interesting pairing....

IMO, both of these companies will be successful.  Listeners will make their
choice based on two factors:

1 - Equipment.

2 - The few differences in programming.

In category #1, XM is way ahead and probably will be until (IF?) Sirius can
close the gap on the number of subscribers.  Big electronics companies are
not going to put a lot of R&D dollars into Sirius development unless the
market is there.  Face it, guys like the cool toys.

In category #2, it's a little more clear cut: if you want NASCAR or
something else exclusive to Sirius, you get Sirius.  If you want Baseball,
etc., you get XM.


It's a good thing we're not talking about satellite TV, because I could rant
all day about the utter incompetence of Dish Network...


Cheers,

Jeff



-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
Of caverat
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:32 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: SIRIUS or XM?


The common perception seems to be that Sirius has the better service while
XM currently has the best looking equipment.  If you want to look at your
radio, go with XM.  If you want to listen to it, go with Sirius.  People
that have XM seem to really like it, however, those who have compared it
with Sirius seem to think the Sirius service is better.  I have never heard
of anyone who switched their service from Sirius to XM.  I have heard of
many people who have switch from XM to Sirius though.  I have followed both
stocks for several years and several newsgroups associated with these
stocks, so I read a lot of posts on user experiences with both services.  I
have three Sirius radios myself, and I don't even listen to CDs or FM
anymore.

One thing that XM did have over Sirius was the NASCAR channel.  XM is
currently the exclusive satellite radio provider for NASCAR.  However, that
changed today.  NASCAR and Sirius announced today that when the XM agreement
runs out next year NASCAR will be moving exclusively to Sirius for at least
five years.  NASCAR has chosen to follow the same route as many former XM
subscribers by moving to Sirius.  Here's what NASCAR's CEO said in today's
press release:

"SIRIUS is the sports leader on satellite radio, and sports programming is a
leading reason subscribers choose SIRIUS," said Brian France, Chairman and
CEO of NASCAR. "When you combine NASCAR's growing popularity with SIRIUS'
commitment to bringing the best in sports to its subscribers, it's easy to
understand why we made this move. We believe that our partnership with
SIRIUS will offer the best possible experience to NASCAR fans nationwide."

NASCAR evidently wasn't too thrilled with their association with XM.  They
tried it and decided to switch to Sirius.  It's a common theme I've seen
repeated numerous times at the subscriber level, but this is the first time
I have seen it at this level.

caverat

89 westy