jbelkin

Car-based iPods Threaten Sirius Satellite Radio, XM

I think the XM/Sirius audience is ultimately limited to begin with - even if you count the radio as "free" or a little more than you would normally pay for the car audio - ultimately, you're talking about over $150 a year not including premium programming.

If you drive an hour each way for commute, there's part of your audience.

Long distance or working drivers (cabs/truck drivers) - the audience is there

But beyond that, who is there really willing to pay $15 a month for radio? Sports? Baseball is clearly the sport of radio but that audience tends to skew older and most of your older fans really live in the area - you always have free radio. Most of other people do not have free evenings to listen to baseball unless they are driving into another state. It's one of those things that sounds great but who has that much free time?

And while NASCAR & NFL are popular on TV, radio is not anyone's "other" choice if they can help it - again, unless you have to work, most of their games are usually when people are already watching the game or are too busy doing something else - and again, for the NFL, local fans have free local radio.

Music - it is great to get hundreds of commercial free stations but unless you drive to work, the ipod is much easier and you really only hear exactly what you want to hear.

That's not to say there no's business or that the ipod has to kill atellite radio but satellite radio has to look at the numbers realistically ... and there is technology that can match them coming soon so they should not get too carried with spending money ... if nationwide wifi max is launched - basically internet radio will be free (as part of your package) since anyone even YOURSELF can launch a stream and with wifi access your website or anyone as a "radio" station - we have thousands of internet radio stations already, it's just a matter of bandwidth now but soon?