advise please satelite radio

[Bombero1956]

XM or Sirius. My wife is getting it for my car. I'm leaning towards whichever one carries Air America.

[truebrit71]

1. Sirius. ...XM is 50% owned by Clear Channel....

'Nuff said...

[gmoney]

4. jinx!

'nuff said?

Haven't said that in 10 years, and here you say it within 5 seconds of me.

[gmoney]

2. Get Sirius

XM is owned in part by Clear Channel, and they pre-empt most of "Majority Report" in favor of (shudder) Alan Colmes.

'nuff said.

[madfloridian]

3. Sirius carries the full program of Air America.

Plus it has Sirius Left with good left wing talk, like Ed Schultz.

[AndyP]

5. On a technical note

Sirius has zero commercials whereas XM has a few (unless you are on news channels that are like TV shows ie fox or cnn-those still have commercials). Sirius costs a 1 more a month I think but that's no biggie. Do you plan to buy a stand alone unit or one that plugs into a aftermarket CD player? If you go with the second route you have to remember that certain brands only play one or the other. I only use Kenwood car audio equipment so I would only be able to get Sirus. If nothing I've said matters to you, go with sirus for the reasons listed above about clear channel. Another thing- I'd buy on eBay, 9 times outta ten it's cheaper then at best buy or something. Hope you like it!

[Beware the Beast Man]

9. As of March 1

All of XM's MUSIC stations are commercial free..but yes, the talk and comedy channels still have commercials (1 or 2 every half hour). But yes, from what I understand, Sirius is totally commercial free.

[Beware the Beast Man]

6. I bought an XM Roadie for my wife,

But i'm inclined to get Sirius for myself for reason:NFL. Broadcasts of all NFL games will begin on Sirius this fall..as a Steeler fan stuck in Cleveland, it's a must.
From what I understand, the musical content of XM and Sirius is pretty much the same (I bought XM for the music because I hate talk radio, left or right), but XM's equipment and subscription rates are cheaper. From what I hear though, Sirius' sound quality is better. The general forecast is that Sirius is the Beta of satellite radio: overall a better product, but just not catching on like XM.
Hope this helps!

[last1standing]

7. I just picked up Sirius.

I didn't know about clear channel owning part of XM but after checking them both out I found that they both had plenty of music. The difference is in the talk radio and the talk on the music stations. The left is much better represented by Sirius for talk and there is less talk of any sort on the music stations. For me, that's perfect.

[Liberal Christian]

8. I wish I had gotten Sirius instead

In the first flush of "I gotta get a satellite radio so I can listen to Air America," I got an XM Roadie and signed up for XM because it was the only one that had Air America.

But it has Air America as part of America Left -- they cut out 3/4 of Randi Rhodes to have Ed Schultz, whom I like even less than I like Randi (both are liberal versions of Rush Limbaugh, as far as I'm concerned). But the real crime is that XM cuts out an hour of Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seader to put on that idiot Alan Colmes.

Sirius has a left-channel, but they ALSO have Air America in its entirety as God intended.

I love, love, love satellite radio, though. I drive all through northern Wisconsin -- listen to something good all the time, never hit dead spots, never have static, never have to settle for a polka station.

[Beware the Beast Man]

10. It's fantastic-

You hear stuff you forgot ever existed!
As for the Clear Channel ownership thing, I figue they don't influence the music programming (yet); besides, who's to stop them from putting their fingers in the Sirius pie as well?