Sirius / XM Satellite Radio

Do you have Satellite Radio yet? No? Really? Do you love commercials?

Having a piped in availability to the music and programs you want without commercials as with broadcast, has to be worth something. Not to mention, your transmission is coming not from across the land via an antenna land based and blocked by too many obstacles, but from the sky, directly overhead (or thereabouts).

Plenty of channels, even individual rock bands have their own channels in some cases, such as The Rolling Stones. Can you believe it?

The original argument against Sirius and XM Satellite radio (now merged) were tired and old arguments. It was the longest time for the approval of this merger by the US Government (18 months) and others have tried hard to kill the company ever since. But, Sirius/XM is still alive and kicking. All those efforts to kill the merger and the company had dropped it down to .19 a share. Today, it is at $2.20 a share (last week it made it up to $2.40 a share). And it keeps going strong.

I do think we need to support new technologies. The newest argument is that Internet Radio will kill Satellite. That's possible. But perhaps we have another add-on, or merger in the works. Hard telling. But they seem like a dynamic company that wants to keep going and acts like the little engine that can do.

Aside from all that, you get it free in new cars (a genius stroke on the part of the company years ago) and after you listen to it for a while with no commercials and with the content you want, it's hard to go back to commercially broadcast standard radio. Even Internet radio has its problems. If you've ever listened to it, you probably ran into that. The Internet is not quite there yet. Of course part of that problem is in the US we have some of the worst bandwidth available in the World. Just look at South Korea. I mean come on. South KOREA?

I think we have a pretty good situation. For those who can afford that monthly subscription fee of $12.95 for 120 channels on Sirius / XM radio. If you want to listen on your laptop or internet device, it's $2.95/mo. Not bad there.

So for now I think Sirius / XM is doing well and not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. My hope is they will morph into something we didn't see coming. Innovation is key in this world. They need to expand into... I don't know what. But keep an eye on them.