I've got Sirius Satellite. It's a great service. It's annoying as hell (before I got it) when you drive home after work and everything you find is a commercial. Listening to one hour of music, you hear commercials about half the time.
I can listen to any kind of music I want and if I don't want to listen to that, turn on Fox News. The non-music programs are great and when you are out in the middle of nowhere and can't find anything on FM, you will always be able to listen to something with satellite. I haven't listened to FM in LONG time. Don't bash it 'til you've tried it.
As far as burning CD's, yeah, it's great, but you have to do it all the time if you want to have the new songs you want to hear.
As far as Sirius being worse off than XM, I'm not sure if I agree with that. XM's cash runs out in the first quarter of 2003. Sirius has enough right now to last until the end of the 2nd quarter. Sirius also has Audi, BMW, Mini Cooper, Daimler-Chrysler (Mercedes), Ford, Mazda, Aston Martin, Lincoln and Mercury on board. They also just picked up Sears as a retailer. In addition, they just redesigned their receiver chips. The new receivers will be credit card sized and about an inch thick. You can put it anywhere in your car and it will cost far less than the current receiver. Sirius also has 3 satellites in the air and no matter what, you will be able to receive a signal from at least 2. If they lose a satellite, the other two will suffice. XM only has 2 satellites, granted they have more repeaters. But if you are out of range of the satellite and a repeater, you'll lose the signal. With 2 satellites, this is a greater likelihood.
Yeah, I'm a little nervous as far as the future of the industry, but I think it will be able to hold. I should also note that I own shares of Sirius as well. I looked at both companies and Sirius seemed to have themselves well connected with other industries, so if they slip, they still have support. XM isn’t as well spread.
The only reason there was so much negativity on it in market reports recently is that the company made the slip and said "bankruptcy;" similar to saying divorce during a wedding. If the stock goes, I came in late enough that it wouldn’t be a hit for me.