Comments on: Music radio? Is anybody listening anymore?

Has the withering of "free" over-the-air music radio proved music is worthless? With Sirius's stock hovering around fifty cents, will commercial-free music satellite radio suffer the same fate?

[brianoreilly]

I love XM for all the reasons given above. With the merger underway, my XM has more stations than ever. I also subscribe to nav traffic as it updates my GPS on traffic pace, construction, accidents etc. I negotitated the the total monthly down to $9.95 and just the nav traffic pays for itself in gas savings every month.

[JWaits]

I listen to college radio almost exclusively. There is still TONS of amazing music being produced and you can actually hear it on terrestrial radio if you take the time to scan left-of-the-dial. I'm always surprised that people bemoan how bad commercial radio is (and I agree), but don't take the time to investigate other radio options. Granted, college radio can be a bit intimidating and a challenge at times since there is such variety, but I think it's worth the extra effort. The first thing I do when I'm in a new city, is turn on the car radio to find out what the college radio stations are like. I'm also surprised and delighted by what I've found.

Jennifer Waits
http://spinningindie.com

[rommeo73]

I can't live without my Sirius Radio. I drive 30 min each way to work and when I get there, I dock it at my work station. I listen all day jumping between Stern, NFL Radio, CNN. When I get tired of that, I have 5 gigs of Music on my Iphone. I have no need for Commercial FM/AM radio anymore...except for the Sirius FM transmitter in my car deck.

[jjolsen]

I'm a former Sirius subscriber. The technology isn't quite ready for broad adoption. Too many 'dead' spots while driving.

I still listen to Alice Cooper's nightly show on old-fashioned radio here in Phoenix. His insight into the industry makes it a lot of fun to listen to.

[lawadvisors]

XM, Sirius, Pandora, Slacker, and talk AM Radio. I purchased a XM subscription several years ago for vehicle use, then my new car came with one year Sirius Subscription standard so at the present I have both (I like certain channels on each better than the other, hopefully with the merger you will be able to select an a la carte option to subscribe to your favorite channels from each service). I also listen to some local AM sports and current events talk radio while driving. I wonder if XM/Sirius will ever pick up any local AM/FM stations like cable and satellite tv which carry local channels. That would be cool because many AM stations power down at night and are more difficult to receive where I live. Finally, at home, I really love my Logitech Squeezebox Duet, I can listen to Pandora, Slacker, and online Sirius in three main listening areas in my house. I have several friends, who unbeknownst to me until recently, have a Squeezebox and love it too. It seems like the Squeezebox is really gaining in popularity.

[justdenny]

ClearChannel is what killed terrestrial radio. I rarely listen to it anymore...(another grumpy old man with a music collection containing about 4500 full albums) I do listen to internet radio, but I'm more likely to run up a 5 hour playlist on winamp from some of my lossless collection, or throw on some LPs, than anything else. In the car, I rarely listen. I have considered sirius, and still am considering it, but it will have to be ala carte before I buy in, probably.

[mykick22]

I don't know who you talk to as far as America's "youth", because I'm 19 and I hang out with people from 15-25 and all of them are VERY into music..and they PURCHASE their music. I have 5 close friends and we all have close to full ipod classics...

[sportsbud1]

I still listen to the good ole terrestrial radio stations in my are its mainly 94.5 KATZ in fact one of the hosts lives across the street from me and if you look at stats you will see the majority of new music discovery comes form listing to the radio why do you think zune included the feature "buy from FM" in its new update(i have a zune love it 1st gen) and if i ever need to get some news in my car dial goes to AM and to 1280 KIT many people listen to the radio for new music the talk shows and unless your a die hard ripper of cds the radio sounds better (my opinion) but just listen and it usually does MP3 is highly compressed and loses quality. The good ole free wide spread easily listenable music stations will be there weather the delivery format changes to a wireless delivery of "free" music to a MP3 player/ipod/zune/etc... there will always be some form of widespread entertainment that's free so until another form of a free transmission service becomes widespread and the receivers are easy to attain AM/FM is here to stay

[mcharge]

People are still listening to music, its just that there are way too many ads on commercial radio and when people can Torrent music for free why should they listen to all the crap?

[seewhy004]

Pandora was glorious but Canadians got cut off a yearish ago. Like Guttenberg, I'm a huge fan of Sirius. Well worth the $10/month. Yeah Stern and Martha Stewart are annoying (I can't handle the celebrity talk radio shows) but there's so much good music you just don't get with traditional FM stations. Throw in the odd comedy channel to pass time in traffic and you're golden.

I also use Sirius to inspire the growth of my personal music collection but I must admit I'm not usually paying for the albums. It's just too darn easy to share the stuff online. For those that are scared to pay the Sirius/XM fee, you should probably make sure you never test it out. Once you've gone satellite, you'll probably never go back.

[amrsradio]

Yes, people are listening to radio, music and otherwise. According to the latest media industry research, 93% of the population listens to radio every week (down from 95% 5 years ago). 98% watch TV. 8% listen to satellite radio. And only 38% of the population picks up a newspaper. In the '60's FM radio was going to kill AM (it didn't happen). In the '70's cable television was going to kill broadcast TV (it didn't happen). In the '80's TV (like MTV) was going to kill radio (it didn't happen). MP3 players and satellite were going to kill radio as well. Guess what? It has not happened. As technology advances we, as consumers, have more choices. This is a good thing. Satellite radio has a LONG way to go before it has any kind of significant impact on terrestrial radio. For now and the foreseeable future, radio, both over-the-air (including the new HD radio technology) and satellite (XM/Sirius), television (including cable, satellite and OTA), and all of the other forms of personal entertainment will continue to evolve, giving consumers more choices in ways to be entertained and informed.

[cjm2576]

> Do you listen to music over AM, FM, Sirius, or Internet radio?
No, Yes, No, Yes.

I listen to FM radio, CD's, MP3s, and streaming internet radio (last.fm, shoutcast). Music is far from dead. My biggest gripes with broadcast radio is the lack of variety and, ironically, the lack of music. Between commercials and "shock jocks" there's just too much darn talk on radio around here these days.

[ezstreet83]

I just wanted to say that I would honestly choose howard 100 or 101 over and tv show any day. It is truly an amazing station on sirius. Dont hate it before you try it.

[ndurantz]

I have lost all but a sliver of hope for terrestrial radio. Local sports channels are ok, but when it comes to music, even in a metropolitan area like Kansas City, most of the radio stations are either boring, lame or offensive. I have an XM subscription and like it.l Yeah, it is a little expensive, but I am a big baseball fan and being able to listen to EVERY MLB game is pretty sweet. Still, I think the only way XM-Sirrius will survive is to drop the pricing. Pandora is freakin' awesome. Wish I could get that into my car!! But most of the time, I rely on my trusty iPod.

[NYCgoalie]

It would make sense if at least ONE MP3-player manufacturer would include a Digital Radio receiver with thier unit. Plain vanilla radio is dead and the digital spectrum would offer more choices.

I'm guessing the only reason this hasn't been done yet is that the Music Industry Elite probably fear people recording the digital music and then not buying the music later.

I still don't buy the argument that piracy diminishes music sales. If you have good music available, people will pay for it. The REAL problem is that there's no more good music out there. Sad really.

[v1m]

"Or maybe they finally realized there are not enough people willing to pay $12.95 a month for commercial-free radio to make Sirius, er, profitable?"

Willing to pay, sure. Able? No.

The $13/mo. satellite radio sub is but one luxury that isn't widely affordable without a bubble economy to sustain it.

[Riggs3001]

Cutting edge music might be scarce in some parts... but not here in Seattle! Heard of KEXP? It's broadcast on 90.3 and available streaming on their website! Not only that - you can get it streaming uncompressed! Not only is it bleeding edge indie/alt music - it is also a non profit, publicly funded operation, almost entirely devoid of commercials!!! Best... station... on the planet.

[OStrolphant]

NPR everyday. There are a few rock stations around me that are ok. mostly southern rock (I am in the south) but that is ok when I do not want to stand up to change the CD.

[slemenda]

We gave up on broadcast AM and FM back in 2005 after we first tried XM. My wife and I both love XM, and we switch from channel to channel depending on mood or need. We have the Polk XRt 12 as the player on the main sound system, and the sound quality is excellent. The interface is much better than that which came built in to our Denon receiver, so we stuck with the Polk. In the bedroom we have the Polk iSonic. Again, very good quality sound. Our favorites are Jazz (70), Folk (15), Country (10), Escape (78) and the oldies channels 4,5,6 and 7. Occasionally we'll wander around and hit some of the others. We always take an XM Roady with us when travelling, and we have XM radios in both cars. When we have the time we play our own CDs and LPs, but music is always on, including low background when we sleep. We have 30+ channels of Sirius available through Dish, but we almost never listen to those anymore. We don't have any interest in subscribing to the new Sirius channels now available through XM. They're just not to our taste.