XM Radio Plans Online Music Service

Grump writes "Diving into the already crowded online music business, XM Radio Online, will launch sometime in early October and operate commercial-free, just as its satellite programming does. XM will charge $7.99 per month for unlimited listening and offer a discount rate of $3.99 to subscribers of its existing radio services."

Hope they don't mind me

[Anonymous Coward]

Time-shifting the broadcasts using Total Recorder [highcriteria.com].

Nice attempt... but competitor's already there!

[LostCluster]

XM's "add streaming of our music online" for $3.99 sounds like a pretty cool deal when taken alone, but their main competitor Sirius actually includes that feature for free with purchase of the main subscription. They'll even offer a 3-day trial of the streaming service for non-subscribers in the hopes of convinving people to sign up based on that. Of course, Sirius charges $3 a month more than XM for their base subscription.

Not impressed

[Spazholio]

Sirius already offers this included in the cost of their service. Hell, you don't even need to be a subscriber to use it. You can sign up for a 3-day trial, wait for it to expire, then sign up again (according to their customer service).

Oh, and XM isn't 100% commercial-free, where Sirius is.

Re:Nice attempt... but competitor's already there!

[Carnildo]

$7.99/mo sounds pretty good if you don't want an OTA subscription.

Um, hello, Sirius is already online for FREE.

[MufasaZX]

All Sirius Sat Radio [sirius.com] subsribers can listen to all their audio streams online for free (as in beer) for the past several months, how can XM possible claim this type of service is 'new and special' and charge for it???

Re:Nice attempt... but competitor's already there!

[nvrrobx]

(Disclaimer: I'm a Sirius customer and shareholder)

I would hope that XM uses higher quality streams than Sirius. I tried to use Sirius's streams from work, but since I'm confined to a set of headphones, it sounds absolutely atrocious.

XM has to do something now that they've axed the XMPCR!

Timeshifting?

[ticklemeozmo]

Only if I can get a ripper.

streaming vs. audience choice

[twizzlybear]

not sure how this is different from any number of countless other free streaming music resources on the internet... i think the bigger question is, do people want streaming of someone elses choice or do they want unlimited choice of their own? we may all jump quickly to the conclusion that we'd like 100% choice all of the time, but there is quite a phemonemon emerging as of late called tivo-itis, where so many are observed getting stuck in ruts at their own content programming ineptitudes and gleefully leap back to pre-programmed channels very interesting topic and one that will certainly continue to impact media markets as VOD and other viewer choice options emerge and are able to compete with pure pre-programmed options

Killer... App

[Sophrosyne]

I will purchase this the minute Howard Stern starts broadcasting over XM

Do they have a clue?

[mfrnka]

Now this after killing XM on the PC? I'm beginning to think XM seriously doesn't "get it". While I enjoy Rhapsody where I can stream what I want, when I want, there are tons of free internet radio stations I can already available. If they keep up these tactics, I'll soon be cancelling my two XM subscriptions.

Is it compatible with mozilla?

[Armethius]

The key question for me is whether it is compatible with non-IE browsers. I would love to sign up for Rhapsody, but they are IE only.

When will the first Time Trax for this be out?

[dgrgich]

I'll bet the RIAA will be looking at this extra-crispy close . . . after that whole XMPCR deal turned into an MP3 factory program.

Re:Nice attempt... but competitor's already there!

[JPriest]

I was an XM subscriber for about a year and currently use Sirus's online subscription at work. I think the sound quality of Sirus is fine and I think they have better content on their stations.

They haven't a clue

[Anonymous Coward]

"XM recently scrapped the XM PC Receiver because the device could be used with third-party software to download music from its radio stations onto home computers."

I can record anything I hear with my soundcard. Sure, it's a little more work, but I can separate the songs using mp3 direct cut. The work comes in when it's time to name them and complete the tags.

Re:Nice attempt... but competitor's already there!

[lavaface]

couldn't believe how many times I heard something that I only vaguely remembered but liked, and never would have thought of searching for.

And this is why it would be friggin' awesome if there was a SD card in the car radio and a button called "remember this song." Later on, you could take the card out of the car, pop it on your PC and buy the songs you totally forgot about. In my case, this would be more useful for flagging great songs I hear on the local college radio and community stations. Oftentimes, I can't stick around to hear who a particular artist is but I want to check them out later. Yes, it's analog radio now, but maybe when they switch to digital it will be possible. I'm not holding my breath . . .

(I actually would like it even better if there was a button that, when pushed would donate a quarter to directly to the artist and give me the right to download the song. It seems like a better distribution model for both consumer and producer. Unfortunately, I don't think the middlemen would quite latch on to the concept ; )