Satellite systems, though pricey, offer plenty
By Mark Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter
The "XM radio" that you may have heard of lately is not the preferred station of the X-Men or a grungy frequency for GenXers.
It's the 100-channel, satellite-based radio service having its Seattle launch today at Experience Music Project.
Boasting that it will "transform" radio, the Washington, D.C.-based XM Satellite Radio is presenting listeners with the kind of dilemma TV viewers faced at the dawn of cable: whether to stick with the free broadcasts and their commercials or shell out money for a wider range of specialized programming with a better signal and fewer commercials.
The broadcasts originate mostly from XM's D.C. studios. XM's two satellites, Rock and Roll, pick them up and beam them down to XM-equipped radios, delivering high-quality digital signals coast to coast.
But buying in is not cheap. About $400 buys a satellite receiver for your car, a roof antenna slightly larger than a computer mouse and the radio to play it on (many models can be brought into the house). For about half that price, you can buy a setup that delivers all of XM's programming through your regular radio but without the satellite clarity. There's also a $10 monthly subscription fee.
But what you get for the money isn't small, either:
• A compact-disc-caliber signal, unless you're in a tunnel.
• Range. You can drive from Seattle to Spokane, or to New York, for that matter, listening to one station without interruption.
• Fewer commercials. About a third of XM's stations are commercial-free; others have a greatly reduced commercial load, XM representatives say.
• An almost comically broad range of programming among XM's 71 music channels and 29 news and talk channels, including a Frank's Place station that's heavy on Sinatra; Hindi, Mandarin and five Latin stations; even a NASCAR racing station. Other options include an alternative-music channels named Fred and Ethel, and The Joint, a reggae station.
• Live DJs, unlike music broadcasts offered through digital cable.
Although today's EMP event is XM's official Seattle christening, the service debuted in September and has been available nationwide since mid-November.
How many people are listening? The publicly traded company won't release those numbers until January, said spokesman Charles Robbins. But he said more than 100,000 XM radios will be on retailers' shelves by the year's end.
At Seattle's Northgate Best Buy store, car-stereo salesman Art Shaddox said customers were excited about XM at first, but interest quickly fell off.
"When it started off, a lot of people were like, 'Wow, you finally got it in!' " Now, Shaddox said, he sells about two kits a week.
A $200 to $400 radio can be a tough sell, but Shaddox said, "For people who do a lot of traveling and spend a lot of time in the car, it's an awesome deal."
The system may get a boost when car manufacturers start offering satellite-radio hardware as a factory option. Cadillac is the first, with others planning to follow suit next year.
By February, Shaddox will also pitch XM's only direct competitor, when Sirius Satellite Radio launches.
XM and Sirius entered a duopoly in 1997 when the Federal Communications Commission sold them each half of the radio spectrum's S-band for $80 million to $90 million apiece, Robbins said. And so far, XM has sunk about $1.4 billion into its operation, which includes a $100 million ad campaign employing such big-time musicians as B.B. King, David Bowie and Snoop Dogg.
"It's an easy sell if you get somebody to actually listen to it. The word of mouth is huge," said Robert Acker, XM's vice president of marketing.
"Many customers tell us they drive to work and end up sitting in their parking lot for 10 minutes because they're hearing a song they hadn't heard in 10 years or a comedy routine from Jerry Seinfeld and they want to hear the end of it."
How the satellite competition will shape up for AM and FM radio — and how closely it'll follow the cable-TV paradigm — remains to be seen.
"Commercial radio doesn't pay it much heed because it has a lot of obstacles to overcome," said 20-year radio vet Marty Riemer, an afternoon DJ on Seattle's KMTT-FM (103.7), "The Mountain," which is owned by Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based Entercom.
"The question still out there is whether people will be willing to pay for what they've received for free all this time."
Riemer said traditional radio hangs on to at least one advantage: "We're local, and we can talk to people about things that are important in their communities."
Nonetheless, Riemer said, "We did receive a memo a couple of weeks ago saying that, as a company, Entercom wouldn't be accepting any advertising from these radio satellite providers."
Mark Rahner can be reached at 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com.
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